Gamer Henry: An AU
by Yours The Author
Summary: In which Henry explores Joey Drew Studios... as an old man with the mind of a twelve year old Let's Player trying to increase his subscriber count. Along the way, he fails at memes and tries to be a good guy, but his success is... indescribable. Open for use as an AU base! Feel free to write your own story based on this AU!
1. Moving Pictures

What's this? What's this? It is not a song fic?

What?

Is?

THIS?!

It was late last Sunday and I got this idea. I thought about scrapping it, but decided to press on, and thus, this was born from the inky dark abyss I call a mind.

Just some things I don't own: YouTube, Instagram, LoZ, and BatIM. See you at the bottom of the page.

* * *

Gamer Henry: An AU

By: Yours The Author

Chapter One: Moving Pictures

* * *

 **First Entering the Studio**

"Alright, Joey. I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see." Henry's words echoed around him. He surveyed the scene: brown boards that were stained with ink and looked almost golden in the yellow lamp light, a projector in front of him, lit and running. Three reels hummed behind a sign that read: "Joey Drew Studios".

"Heck yeah." Henry pulled out his iPhone and snapped a picture of the gears. "These'll look great for my YouTube thumbnail. Now let's see…" Henry flipped his camera so that he could see himself in the screen and switched to video mode.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Henry, and welcome to my live stream let's play vlog. Today's scenario: Joey Drew Studios. My old boss/ business partner sent me a letter…" Henry took out the letter from his pocket and read aloud:

"Dear Henry,

It seems like a lifetime since we worked on cartoons together. 30 years really slips away, doesn't it?

If you're back in town, come visit the old workshop. There's something I need to show you.

Your best pal,

Joey Drew."

Henry put the letter away. "I have no idea what Joey's planning, but I hope it's good. Let's just jump into it." Henry flipped his camera so the screen showed what was in front of him instead of looking at himself. "So far, it looks promising. Ink everywhere, mood lighting, old timey tech… There's bound to be a glitch or an Easter egg around here."

He walked to the projector and smacked it a few times with his free hand. "Hmm… it seems I can't interact with this thing…" He slapped at the turning wheels behind the studio sign. "Or these…" he tried the door near the back of the room. "Or this. Ah, man. Joey better be planning something good. Let's keep going."

 **Entering the New Work Room**

Henry walked down the hall and came upon a larger room full of drawing desks. "Looks like they knocked out a wall or two when I left. Guess it took a few people to replace me."

He saw an animation still on a desk near the back of the room and hurried over to it. "Guys, check it ouuut!" he squealed, shoving his camera right up into the picture of his little devil darling, Bendy, who seemed to be sitting cheerfully on the 'ground'. "It's my boy! My precious bean! Wait…!"

Henry turned around with the camera and waited a few seconds before turning back. Bendy now had a confused/ slightly concerned look on his face. "Oh my gosh, lookit! He changes poses when you're not looking; that's so _tight_!" Henry danced on his tippy toes and squeed again. "Look at my son!" He waved the camera at Bendy the Concerned Demon. "Okay, okay, Henry, time to calm down," Henry took a few breaths and checked his camera battery. "We're at eighty percent, folks; we only just started and I can't heckin' waaaaaait~!"

 **The Hall to the Ink Machine**

"Well, this is a conundrum." Henry stared down at the pipe with the large, friendly sign reading "Watch your step!" It was too tall and thick to just step over… what could he do?

"Hmm…" Henry put his free hand to his chin and stared at the pipe.

And stared.

And stared.

And—

Henry jumped on top of the pipe. "So, there's a jump mechanic!" He exclaimed. "Compelling gameplay mechanics, Joey Drew! Wait, can I run in this game?" Henry jumped off of the pipe and tried sprinting forward, to no avail. "Hm, I take back what I said about the gameplay. Is this gonna be like Legend of Zelda, where you can only move faster if you get the Bunny Hood or roll? Well, _jump_ in my case, but ya'll know what I mean. Anyway, let's keep moving."

 **The Ink Machine Room**

"Yoooo…" Henry gaped at the huge room. "YOOOOO!" Henry grasped the railing with his free hand and panned the camera around. The room had a high ceiling and a floor below his landing. There were four chains connected to something, presumably the Ink Machine, in a deep dark hole in the back of the room.

Henry paused the video and turned the camera around for a selfie. "Maybe _this_ should be my thumbnail? Gosh, there're so many good ones… How's a bro to choose?"

He unpaused the video and surveyed the deck he was standing on. There was a glowing device on a shelf, some boxes (one of which revealed another glowing device after some haphazard slapping), a switch, and a glowing machine with two slots in it.

"Glowing things are always a good sign, though with the color scheme of the setting, this may be harder to see in a tense situation," Henry said, putting the dry cells into the slots. "Let's see what you're hiding down there, old friend." He blinked and shook his head. "Why am I talking all formal? What I mean to say is… Let's make stuff take place!"

He flipped the switch.

There was a creaking sound, and the chains began to pull up… and the Ink Machine rose in all its glory. Some violins or something played an eerie tune. "Ooh, sweet," Henry said, aiming the camera right at machine. "This is a killer soundtrack… maybe I should do a remix of this song for my ending theme?"

Henry paused a moment and gazed at the machine, lowering his camera slightly. The Ink Machine was huge; not quite a box, but similar enough. Pipes full of black ink throbbed slightly to the tune of his heart beat, and steam and dust faded into the golden light. He shook his head and righted the camera. "Welp, only thing to do now is turn this baby on. Come on, guys."

 **The Room with the Boris**

Henry walked down the hall silently. His throat was parched. Some water would be nice. Talking sure seemed to be taking a lot out of him, despite only being in the studio for a few minutes. Maybe his mom was right: maybe he wasn't cut out to be a let's player. Maybe he should quit-

A board fell from the ceiling in front of him, and Henry shrieked in a manly way. "What am I thinking?" He asked aloud after getting his jitters out. "Of _course_ I can be a let's player! Mom doesn't know what she's—wait." He checked the camera. "Is this thing still recording? Aw, shoot—"

He looked to the left and gasped, eyes going wide. "Oh my God… Joey, what were you doing? This is… _this is_ …" He stepped toward it… than another step… then he sped walked to it. "…so _COOL!_ "

Henry pranced around the torture table with the mangled body of Boris the Wolf on it before pausing the video again and taking another selfie. "Sorry you're dead, Boris…" Henry muttered as he tapped the keys on his phone. "Hashtag: Lots of Love; hashtag: Best Boy After Bendy." He clicked the submit button on Instagram and unpaused the video.

"Sorry guys, had to represent my other son for the afterlife. Let's try to turn on the Ink Machine."

 **The Summoning Room and The Subsequent Halls**

"Alright. How do I get this to work?" Henry surveyed the summoning room: there were six pedestals, three on each side of the room, with pictures of random objects he had seen throughout the studio behind them. "A fetch quest? _Really,_ Joey? I let it slide last time 'cause the things were in the same vicinity as the other thing. Oh well; no way around it, I guess."

He exited the room and jumped again. A cut out of Bendy was standing in the intersection of the halls outside the room. "Who put this here?!" Henry wheezed. After he caught his breath, he kicked the cutout over. "Sorry, son. I love you, but you're being a creepy-creep. I didn't raise no creepy-creep. Anyway…"

"Backtracking~!" He sang the word over and over as he skipped around the studio (like a real man) and collected the items: a gear, a Bendy doll (AKA Beandy the Dancing Bean), a book, an ink well, a record, and a wrench.

Henry stopped at a desk in one of the halls and saw a tape recorder. "Sweet, some lore!" He explained for the audience of two. "Oh, Joey Drew; always showing lore in the best, albeit unoriginal, ways." He clicked the play button, turned up his phone's sound sensitivity to the max, and pressed the speaker to the recorder.

"At this point, I don't get what Joey's plan is for this company," the voice said.

"That's Wally Franks," Henry whispered loudly and breathily into the phone's speaker.

"The animations sure aren't being finished on time anymore. And I certainly don't see why we need this machine. It's noisy, it's messy, and who needs that much ink, anyway? Also, get this: Joey had each of us donate something from our work station. We put them on these little pedestals in the break room. 'To help appease the gods,' Joey says, 'keep things going'. I think he's lost his mind, but, hey, he writes the checks. But I tell you what: if one more of these pipes bursts, I'm outta here!"

Henry pulled the phone away and returned the sound sensitivity to normal. "Some interesting lore," he said aloud. "So, we've got some satanic ritual stuff going on, is that what you're saying, Franks? Hmm…"

He kept going, gazing around the hallways as he moved. "The graphics aren't anything super fantastic, but they look hand painted and fit the theme of the place really well. You have a fan here, Joey Drew," Henry said quietly, more to himself than the audience.

He walked down some stairs into what appeared to be an actual break room and looked around. "Nothing looks important in-wait-a-minute." Henry hurried to one of the walls. "Can it be…?" He whispered. "No… he didn't…" He reached up to the wall… and removed a dart from the dart board. "I can play darts?! Heck yeah!"

Henry snatched up three darts, set his phone on a table facing him and the board, and took aim. "This is great game play!" Henry cheered. "It's like he's prepping us to do this again in a later part of the game! I take back what I said about taking back what I said about your gameplay, Joey—This is AWESOME!"

Henry continued to play darts for a half hour.

After that half hour, he hurried back to the Summoning Room and set the items on their respective pedestals.

"Now I just need to get the ink flowing somehow. Should be a switch around here somewhere. Then I can start the main power," he explained to the audience.

 **In the Theater Room**

"EEK!" Henry screamed like a man at the Bendy cut out that popped up from around the corner of the hall they were in. "What did I say about not raising a creepy-creep, Bendy?" Henry nudged the cutout against the wall and stepped into the theater room.

This triggered the projector in the middle of the room to turn on, illuminating the screen, some chairs, and—

"Ah-ha!" In the back of the room was a valve with a sign reading "Ink Pressure" above it. Henry turned the valve with his free hand.

Suddenly, a pipe in the room burst and began to flood the room with ink.

"Nooo!" Henry wailed, clutching his phone to his chest and hurrying out of the theater. "My mommy just got me this phone! She'll be so mad if I ruin it!"

 **The Summoning Room and the Ink Machine Room: Part Two**

Henry had paused the video to wipe the screen of his phone with his already inky shirt and had restarted it again just as he entered the summoning room. "Dangit, this'll have to do," he muttered as he aimed the screen at the switch. "Okay, guys, this is it. The big one. The big shebang. Time to see what Joey Drew wanted to show me."

He flipped the switch.

The room darkened slightly, and Henry switched his phone's flashlight on.

He hurried toward where the deck was… then stopped. He pressed himself into the intersection of the two walls of the two hallways. "I'm trying to see if I can speed run this section and save a few seconds by glitching the barrier," he explained. After a second, he gave up. "Joey has some pretty good barrier action. Or it would just take more time to do than it's worth. That could be it, too."

He hurried again to the deck and stopped once more. This time, there was a better reason why. The doorway was boarded up.

"There's gonna be a jumpscare," Henry muttered. "Of _course_ there's gonna be a jumpscare. It's so obvious… unless Joey _knew_ I'd know… but then, wouldn't he know that I know? So that means… uh…" Henry absently stepped closer to the boards.

Something threw itself into the boards on the other side and made Henry fall backwards. "I frickin' knew it!" Henry yelled as he ran away. "Oh, _now_ I can run!?"

Ink filled the hallways, seeping and squishing in Henry's shoes as he ran. Henry snapped a selfie of himself as he ran. "BRB, gonna drown in ink!" He shouted as he typed. "Hashtag: the floor is ink! Hashtag: Love you, mom!" He quickly uploaded the picture to Instagram and unpaused the camera.

"Okay guys," he huffed as he sloshed through the ink. "This might be my last video, so if you liked it, like, comment, and subscribe to my channel—" Henry gasped and turned the camera to show what he was seeing. "There's the exit!" He shouted. "And it's open! I-!"

The floor gave way under his feet and he fell… and fell… and fell…

 **Under the Studio**

SPLOSH!

Henry floundered in the ink, his death grip nearly snapping his phone in half. "Okay!" He said once he found his footing. "I didn't die… yet. Oh, man…" Henry leaned against a wall and covered his eyes with his free hand. "This is… this is really…" Henry sniffled…

"This is GREAT!" He splashed the ink with his free arm like a kid in a public pool and waded to a valve on the wall. "This is gonna get so many views! I'll be as popular as the other let's players! In your face, mom!"

As Henry turned the valve, the ink drained away and was reduced to slick trickles. Henry walked happily out into the hall of the room he was in and saw another tape recorder. "Sick, more lore." He clicked the play button and held the phone to the recorder.

"It's cold and it's dark and it's stuck in behind every single wall now," the voice said.

"That's Thomas Connor," Henry whispered breathily into the phone.

"In some places, I swear this godforsaken ink is clear up to my knees! Who ever thought that these crummy pipes could hold up under this kind of strain either knows something about pressure I don't, or he's some kind of idiot. But the real worst part about all this… are them noises the system makes. Like a dying dog on its last legs. Make no mistake, this place… this… machine… heck, this whole darn thing… it just isn't natural. You can bet I won't be doing any more repair jobs for Mr. Joey Drew."

The tape clicked off.

"…Well," Henry said. "That explained… not much. We'll probably learn more as we progress. Come on, dudes." He walked down the hall and down some stairs, turning a valve here and there to drain the ink. Henry figured it would be best to collect his thoughts a bit before speaking again. Give the viewers time to think about what they'd seen on his live stream vlog. He opened a door.

The new room was much less inky, which he was thankful for. It also had a boarded-up hallway. Luckily, the ax on the wall was glowing, so he could pick it up. "This will definitely come in handy," Henry said, switching the ax to his right hand and holding the phone with his left. He gave the ax an experimental swing and chopped one of the board clean in half. "Sweet," he said.

He continued to chop up the boards, until he reached a door. Behind the door was… was….

"Aw, rad." Henry snapped a picture of the pentagram-like drawing on the floor. "Guess there really _was_ satanic stuff goin' on like Wally Franks said."

Something beaned him over the head and he fell.

As he tried to take one last death selfie (Hashtag: Rolling On The Floor Dying), he saw flashes of different objects: a wheel chair, that monster he'd seen near the Ink Machine…

"You guys… seeing this…?" He asked his audience before his head hit the floor.

 **And thus, begins Henry's journey through Joey Drew Studios… or does it? You decide!**

* * *

And… done! Phew, that was awful. Unless you liked it. Then it was great.

I'm not sure where exactly this idea came from, but… it was something. I kind of based this Henry off of the stereotypical twelve-year-old gamer who speaks too close to the microphone, except this time it's an old man. Joy.

I mean what I said in the last line. If you like it, I'll continue it. If not, I won't. You'll have to review to do that, but whatever.

So, leave a review, tell me what you thought, and I'll see you later. Also, not that this is likely to happen, but if you want to try out this AU for yourself, go for it! Just send me a note saying where it is so I can see it. Bye!


	2. The Old Song

Wow, I guess I've garnered a small audience for this hot mess of a story, huh? Certainly didn't expect that. Anyway, I'm back. Yay.

You may notice that I skipped a few recordings in this chapter. They were getting really repetitive and I got sick of writing them. I hope you don't mind.

A list of things I don't own: BatIM, Instagram, YouTube, jacksfilms, Valve (the gaming company), and Snicker's.

* * *

Chapter Two: The Old Song

* * *

 **Waking Up**

"Ugh… oh, my _head_. What happened?" Henry's voice was barely audible over the sound of his ears ringing. Was the studio always this dark, or were his eyes covered in ink? He forced his eyes open and let his gaze trace along the wooden inky floor. Lighted candles made his ax visible, leaning neatly against a… coffin?

"Oh, no…" Henry whispered, rubbing his eyes and getting to his feet. "Oh, _no…!_ " Henry stumbled quickly to the coffins. "This is terrible! My phone is missing!" He took the ax in his right hand and whipped around the room, not even paying attention to the summoning circle he had been laying on.

"Where could it be?" He moaned. "Mom's gonna be so—" He saw something flash out of the corner of his eye. "—Happy I didn't lose it! Yay~!"

He skipped to the opposite wall the ax had been laying against and scooped up his phone. "No cracks…" he murmured as he examined the slightly stained screen and Otter Box. For some reason, the last video he had taken—the one of him first entering the studio—had been uploaded to YouTube already. No views yet, but given Henry was just starting out, that was probably to be expected. "…And we're around seventy five percent battery! Woo!"

Henry laid back down on the floor and angled his phone to take a selfie of himself and the "pentagram". "Hashtag: Literal devil darling" was all he wrote as he posted the picture to Instagram. His quota for selfie taking met for the moment, Henry switched the camera to video mode and hit record.

"Hello everyone," he began, "my name is Henry, and you're watching part two of my let's play live stream vlog. Now, I'm in a room with two coffins…" he turned the camera to the objects, "…and I'm not sure what's going on, but we're gonna find out, and by golly, we'll have fun doing it." Henry looked around the room for anything new. Not much, aside from a door with two boards nailed over it. "Well, I guess there's only one thing to go. Press on. See if I can find a way out. So les' jusht jump into it!"

 **Utility Shaft 9**

After breaking the boards and heading down the stairs (squeaking like a rubberhose shoe at the falling board from the ceiling), Henry paused in front some inky writing on the wall:

HE WILL SET US FREE.

"Sick." Henry paused the video, snapped a picture, and unpaused the video. "Now, that leaves us players/ viewers with a few questions: who is 'he', and what will we be set free from?" He explained. "Also, this could make a sweet thumbnail, though something is missing. I'll look for better ones as I go through this section of the studio. Ooh, maybe I should do a poll once I find more thumbnails. What do you guys think?" Henry continued past the words. "Leave a comment on the video and tell me what you think—woah."

He had come to an intersection of several halls. "How did this place get so big?" He murmured to himself. "How much would this cost in real life? What about the structural safety of this much underground space and never mind there's a tape over there." Henry clicked the play button on the recorder and held his phone to the speaker.

"He appears from the shadows to rain his sweet blessings upon me," the voice began.

"That's Sammy Lawrence," Henry breathed into the phone speaker.

"The figure of ink that shines in the darkness. I see you, my savior. I pray you hear me. Those old songs, yes, I still sing them. For I know you are coming to save me. And I will be swept into your final loving embrace. But, love requires sacrifice. Can I get an 'amen'?" The audio clicked to a stop.

"I said, can I get an 'amen'?"

Henry jumped a foot in the air and whipped the camera around. No one was there. "Ooh, creative take on jump scares, Joey," Henry nodded in approval. "We can also assume some things from that piece of lore. Sammy seems just a little different from his first 'appearance', so we can say that whoever 'he' is, is bad news."

Henry panned the camera around the intersection. "There's an electrical box over there," Henry pointed at the object, "though since it isn't glowing, I can't tell if it's part of the environment or if I can actually use it. Still, it's an important thing to note." Henry rubbed his knuckles on his shirt and blew off his fingernails. "As a gamer, I take pride in knowing these things. Stick with me, dear viewers, and you'll learn a thing. Let's keep going."

 **The Disappearing Musician**

Henry held the ax and phone above his head as he waded through the ink flooded hallway. Wouldn't want to get his precious babies messy, right? Henry kept his eyes down, trying to detect any weak spots in the floor. He almost didn't notice the shadowy figure walking by the doorway holding a cardboard cutout of Bendy.

"Hello! Excuse me!" He called after the person. "Can you help me? Hello?" The figure showed no sign they heard him, and continued walking.

"Finally, some NPC action!" Henry strode through the ink as fast as he could. "Now we can get a bunch of lore without relying on a repetitive mechanic… if I can catch up to them, obviously…" He muttered this last part as he finally stepped onto dry ground. He turned left, the direction he had seen the figure going… and saw a cutout of his beanie boy. "Where the heck did they go?"

Henry reached a hand to the shelf on the cutout's right and saw something glow out of the corner of his eye. It was cans upon cans of bacon soup.

Henry picked one up and immediately shoved it in his mouth, can and all. Trying not to choke, he swallowed the whole thing and felt it slide heavily down his throat and into his stomach, where it sat heavier still. It tasted like salted metal, but he also felt a little less tired.

"Ah…" Henry mused. "A healing mechanic. But what do I need healing from? Is there another jump scare coming our way? Stay tuned, folks," he said to his remaining audience.

 **The Fetch Quest**

"Aha!" Henry stopped in front of the panel with a switch and three buttons near a door. "Need to get power to this gate somehow. Should be a couple switches nearby. Then maybe I can open it. In other words…" Henry pointed the camera at himself. "I knew that first electrical box was important. Though I don't know why I wasn't allowed to just use it before I found this panel. It's just a way to increase playtime averages. Anywho, I'm going backtracking. If you need to go potty, now is the time."

 **The Music Department**

"It's really dark in here," Henry muttered as he switched on his phone's flashlight. He panned around the room slowly, stopping at the sign featuring the words 'Music Department' and some records and music notes.

"Neato-skeeto." Henry snapped a picture. "Entry number two for the thumbnail poll. Now, let's take a listen to this lore, shall we?" He hit the play button on the recorder leaning against the sign and held the phone to the speaker.

"So first, Joey installs this ink machine over our heads." The voice began.

"It's Sammy again, dudes!" Henry breathed excitedly directly into the phone.

"Then it begins to leak. Three times last month, we couldn't even get out of our department because the ink flooded the stairwell. Joey's solution? An ink pump to drain it periodically. Now I have this ugly pump switch right in my office. People in and out all day. Thanks, Joey. Just what I needed. More distractions. These stupid cartoon songs don't write themselves, you know."

"Hmm," Henry hummed once the recording stopped. "I guess that means this is a different point in Sammy's timeline? Leave your theories in the comments below, guys, and tell me what you think."

Henry walked through a random doorway by the sign and saw, as Sammy had said, a stairwell flooded with ink. By the wall was a glowing switch. He pulled it, and the lights in the room behind him flickered on, but the stair well remained flooded. "Looks like the stairwell is flooded," he explained to his dwindling audience. "If I'm going to get out of here, I'll need to find a way to drain it. Probably by finding Sammy's office, first."

He stepped back into the much more brightly lit room and stepped in a puddle. As he did, a black, inky blob with a head, arms, and a torso popped out and grabbed Henry's ankle. Henry fell backwards, luckily keeping his grip on his phone and ax. "Hecker!" He yelled, smacking the blob with his ax. "You almost made me drop my phone! Die, die, DIE!" He scrambled to his feet and found more blobs surrounding him. He kept swinging his ax while holding his phone high, filming everything from the blob's moans to the sick nasty violins playing in the background. Soon, Henry was alone.

 **Take a Break**

Henry found a door and opened it, revealing… _revealing…!_

"No fricken' way…" Henry's ax slipped out of his hand and clattered on the floor.

"A _pool table?! HECK YEAH!"_ Henry propped his phone against the lining "wall" of the table and reequipped his ax, using the handle as a pool stick thing. He screwed around, hitting the little round circles into the holes, for another half hour. When he was done, he snapped yet another selfie.

"Hashtag: Who's the best pool boy?; hashtag: Me; hashtag: it's always me." He murmured as he uploaded the pic to Instagram. Then, he headed out the door. Back to puzzle solving.

 **Sammy's Office… Sort Of**

"Well, there's the pump switch alright… but that's one heck of a leak blocking the door, though. If I could just stop that ink from flowing, maybe I can get in." Henry panned the video up at the pipe with a giant gap in it, gushing ink everywhere. There was another recorder just within Henry's reach without being drowned in the stuff. "Maybe this'll help…?" He pondered as he clicked the play button.

"So I go to get my dust pan from the hall closet the other day, and guess what?"

"That's Wally Franks again!" Henry yelled over the sound of ink.

"I can't find my stupid keys! It's like they disappeared into thin air or something. All I can think of is that they must have fallen into one of the garbage cans as I was making my rounds last week. I just hope nobody tells Sammy, because if he finds out I lost my keys again, I'm outta here!"

"I don't know if any of you heard that over the ink," Henry backed away from the leak and turned the camera to his face, "but it seems that Wally Franks lost his keys in a garbage can at some point. My gamer instincts say that those keys must be the way to reach the switch… somehow. Also, Sammy and Wally don't seem to get along too well. Interesting information to give us, Joey. Interesting indeed."

Henry took off a shoe and dumped a puddle of ink on the ground. "Still, another fetch quest? Really? This better not become a regular thing, Joey…"

 **After Another Fetch Quest; The Old Song**

"I _finally_ found them!" Henry groaned as he stood from his squatting position by the third trash can he had searched. He _was_ an old man, after all. "Now, let's see where these keys lead. Wally said it was a hall closet, right?"

Henry wandered back to Sammy's office and opened the door by the flooded doorway. He found only a glowing tape recorder, of which he clicked the play button.

"Every artistic person needs a sanctuary. Joey Drew has his and I have mine," The voice said tiredly.

"Sammy Lawrence, y'all!" Henry shouted over the running ink.

"To enter, you need only know my favorite song. The drum thunders in triumph. The piano delicately calls. The piano returns in graceful harmony. The banjo playfully plucks. Sing my song, and my sanctuary will open to you."

"Why would Sammy record something like this?" Henry wondered aloud. "He obviously knows his own favorite song, and he wouldn't want to share it with anyone, probably… is this tape's only purpose to help me, the player, advance in the game? Poor thinking, Joey Drew. I'd suggest maybe someone forcing Sammy to reveal his favorite song? Like, Wally Franks needing to know it to clean up Sammy's sanctuary and Sammy begrudgingly sharing it? It's something to think about."

 **Music and Sanctuaries**

Henry found some stairs and went up into a smaller studio with a glowing projector. "My gamer senses are tingling!" Henry exclaimed before he smacked it with the butt of his ax. It flickered to life and began to roll its tape. There was a window that showed a music room below, with some familiar instruments. "So, here's where that song probably comes into play," Henry explained for his viewers as he hurried down the stairs into the instrument room, playing the drum, the piano, the piano again, and the banjo.

There was a click, and a metal door rolled up, revealing the recording room. "What kind of favorite song was that?" Henry griped as he strode to the new room. "It was literally four single random notes played on three different instruments. I know they probably want to keep the fetch quest short and simple—which I appreciate, really—but couldn't they do something more… song like? I dunno, man, it just ain't kosher… I mean, I think that's what kosher means in a colloquial sense, anyway."

He entered a thin hallway with a toilet and a pump wheel at the end. "Some sanctuary," Henry muttered, "though I guess that's just his idea of one. Still…" Henry set down the ax (not the phone, _never_ the phone) and turned the flow wheel.

He turned around and shrieked in a definitely not feminine way. A Bendy cutout disappeared behind the corner of the hall. "Boi, what did I say about not raisin' a creepy creep? I only said it… three… times…" Henry's words died in his mouth and went to word heaven. He had looked up at the projector, and standing up there was… _was…_

"…yo…" Henry whispered. An inky black figure with dirty overalls was standing up there, mostly hidden in the shadows but definitely there. "Yo, man, what up?" Henry grinned and waved his ax up at the figure. "Your look is totes rad! Selfie?" Henry paused the video and did a peace sign with the figure appearing from near Henry's head. The figure did not move. Henry ignored this.

"Hashtag: Just ink things; hashtag: New friend!; hashtag: told you this job would get me friends, _mom_!" He whispered excitedly as he uploaded the photo to Instagram. While Henry wasn't looking, the figure waved a hand and walked away. At least six blob people exploded out of the ink puddles around Henry, who looked up just in time to see them.

"Hecking heck!" He shouted as he swung his ax at the enemies. Luckily, they were quickly vanquished, and Henry was, once more, alone.

 **The Infirmary and Utility Shaft 9**

"I guess there're more drains I need to activate before I can get into Sammy's office, huh? At least the infirmary is open… I guess." Henry grumbled to himself as he carefully stepped down the slick stairs. He didn't jump when another ink person or two popped up in front of him, and swung his ax nonchalantly. His nonchalance, however, was quickly shattered.

"Oh, no, there's no valve! Where did it go?" Sure enough, there was a pipe with a missing valve with a switch next to it. The switch had a sign over it reading "Utility Access" and was glowing, so Henry pulled it, revealing the set of stairs that led down. "This better be worth it, Joey," Henry huffed. "I'm starting to get sick of these fetch quests. When's the cool stuff gonna happen?"

At the bottom of the stairs, a pair of metal doors were slowly pulling apart, revealing the inky words:

"'Down here, we're all sinners…'" Henry read quietly. He refocused the camera onto the words. "I guess this is kinda cool," Henry told his viewers," I just wish there was more plot centric stuff going on, that's all." Henry turned to the left hallway beyond the metal doors. "Okay, that works." Henry aimed his camera at the inky figure with a hat peering at him from some boards. When Henry walked toward it, it slipped into the ink on the floor and disappeared, though not before Henry saw something.

"Was that thing holding my valve? I wish it was holding my _VALVE_ , amiright? Up top!" Henry high-fived his phone, nearly knocking it out of his hand. Henry lost a viewer.

"Ahem, anyway," Henry pointed the phone at the words written on the curving wall of the hall. "The sheep will come to slaughter, huh? Definitely getting some satanic worshipping vibes up in here. Also, give a like if you want Portal 3 to come out."

Henry continued along the hall and found a small alcove with a recorder. He hit play.

"I love the quiet, and it's hard to come by in these busy times," said a gravelly voice.

"That's Jack Fain," Henry said, literally sticking the phone in his mouth.

"And yeah, sure, it might stink to high heaven down here, but it's just perfect for an old lyricist like me. Sammy's songs always got some bounce, but if I didn't get away once in a while, they'd never have any words to go with them. So I'll keep my mind a-singin' and my nose closed."

Henry pulled the phone out of his mouth and spat out some ink. "The things I do for you guys. Anyway, since that ink figure is the only one down here—so far, anyway—I wonder if that's Jack Fain? It would make sense, at least."

Henry hurried along, finally reaching a room with strange machines with switches, and…

"It's Jack Fain—I mean, whoever that guy is!" Henry whispered excitedly. "But in a puzzle like this, he's probably not going to just give it to me… there has to be another way…"

Henry panned the camera around the room, looking through it to find something, anything to help him. Then, he saw a box with chains attached to it. He pulled the switch on the left with an up arrow over it, raising the box in the air. Then, he pulled the opposite switch with a down arrow over it, causing the box to fall and crush the poor ink figure.

"Sorry I had to do that. Nice hat, though." Henry picked up the valve and gazed at the hat. "Please, please, _please…_ " Henry smacked the hat with the butt of his ax. Nothing happened. "Nooo…" Henry moaned. "Why can't I take the hat? Let the player take the hats, Joey! Who wouldn't want a sweet hat? I want a sweet hat. Hat hat hat hat hat."

 **Sammy's Office… Finally**

It seemed that last valve thing had done the trick. Sammy's office door was no longer blocked. "Frickin' finally," Henry grumbled. "When this is over, Joey, I have some choice words about the fetch quest mechanics. This better not be a theme of the game."

Henry pulled the switch in the office and heard some grinding sounds. Time to head to the stairs… if Henry could find them again.

Henry walked through to the intersection of the music department… and felt something smack him in the back of the head. He grunted as he fell to the floor in a heap. As the world around him darkened, he saw a figure holding something. "Rest your head," the figure chanted, "it's time for bed."

"Sick," Henry moaned, taking a death selfie.

 **The Sheep and The Prophet**

"There we go, now, nice and tight." Henry could barely hear the voice over the sound of his ears ringing. His vision was cloudy, but he could make out a person dressed in black and white (or maybe they were just black and white in general?) holding his ax. "We wouldn't want our sheep running away, now would we?" They gripped Henry's ax in both hands. "No, we wouldn't."

"That… voice…" Henry shook his head and tried to check to see if his phone battery was dead yet… but his hands were tied behind his back.

"I must admit…" Henry's vision cleared. He saw an inky person in overalls with a ruined Bendy mask on his face. "I am… honored, you came all the way down here to visit me."

"Dang, you shredded," Henry said, whistling. The figure did not notice.

"It almost makes what I'm about to do seem… cruel." The figure walked away from Henry and set down the ax… right next to Henry's phone.

"My phone!" Henry cried, struggling in his bonds. "My mommy gave me that phone, you know! You better not have ruined it, you—"

"But the believers must honor their savior," the figure interrupted, walking back to Henry. "I must have him notice me."

"…Are you Sammy Lawrence? 'Cause you're _way_ too ripped to be a music director."

"Wait, you look familiar to me…" Sammy leaned close to Henry. "That face…"

Henry leaned his face away. "Dude, ever heard of something called toothpaste? I don't use it, but you should give it a try."

Sammy pulled away. "Not now," he said, "for our lord is calling to us, my little sheep. The time of sacrifice is at hand!""

"But seriously though, what's with the six pack? Is it supposed to make you looking scary? 'Cause it doesn't really. The animation sure is nice, though."

"And then," Sammy continued, "I will finally be free from this prison." He looked down at his biceps. "This inky, dark… abyss, I call a body."

"Honestly, you look pretty okay for an ink guy," Henry said. Sammy put a finger to Henry's lips. "Um—"

"Shh!" Sammy hissed. "Quiet! Listen…" Henry waited, but there was no sound. "I can hear him, crawling above, _crawling…!"_ He wiggled his fingers.

"I think you're half crazy," Henry said, "which sure fits the mood of this place: degrading environment, writing on the walls, ink people…"

"Let us begin," Sammy said. "The ritual must be completed. Soon, he will hear me. He will set us free."

"Who's he?" Henry asked. Sammy stared at him for a moment before walking out of a door on Henry's left. "Seriously, who's he? Joey? Bendy? I bet it's Bendy. Not that I can blame Sammy; Bendy is best boi."

"Sheep, sheep, sheep, it's time for sleep," Sammy's voice called from an audio speaker Henry couldn't see. "Rest your head, it's time for bed. In the morning, you may wake. Or, in the morning, you'll be dead."

"Can I at least get my phone back?" Henry whined.

"Hear me, Bendy!" A metal door a dozen feet in front of Henry opened slowly, creaking from disuse.

"Aw, man… This would have gotten so many views!" Henry struggled in his bindings.

"Arise from the darkness! Arise and claim my offering!"

Henry looked up from his attempts to escape and saw… no one on the other side of the door. "Well, at least Sammy exposited all over me. How will I get this exposition out of my clothes? They'll leave a stain."

"Free me, I beg you! I summon you, Ink Demon! Show your face, and claim this tender sheep!" There was a clattering sound, and Henry paused to glance up at the ceiling, as one does when there's an announcement at school. "No! My lord! Stay back! I am your prophet! I am your-!" Sammy screamed, and Henry's ropes loosened.

"How convenient," Henry said, picking up his phone and checking it over. More ink slicks on the screen, but at seventy percent battery and otherwise in fine condition. He found the video on pause and unpaused it. "Okay, guys," he told his dwindling audience, "I don't think you got any of what just happened, so here's a play by play: Bendy is some magical ink demon and Sammy Lawrence worships him. And is presumably dead. That too. Also, listen to this killer sound track!" Henry stopped talking and panned the camera around the room. It was a little hard to hear over the shaking studio, but it was still pretty sweet. Henry picked up the ax, and some ink people popped out of the puddles of ink. Henry beat them back, then hurried through the opened hall.

 **A Broken Ax, A Demon, and A "New" Character**

"Dang it, dang it, _dang it!_ " Henry growled, kicking at a freshly chopped board. "My stupid ax broke! _Now_ how am I supposed to—"

An ink creature— _the_ ink creature—sprang out of the inky mess in front of Henry like a jack in the box.

"Ooh, awesome!" Henry trilled, running at the inky son. "I wonder if he'll kill me if I get close-!" Bendy started rushing at Henry, but stopped when he saw the human run to him. Bendy sank back into the ink. "Aw, _man,_ " Henry whined, "nothing cool ever happens to me…"

Henry walked through the only remaining hallway which was slowly being stained with ink. He heard a splash behind him, turned, and saw—

"You're kidding me," Henry said. "You. Are. _Kidding._ Me." Bendy stood there, smiling but definitely confused. "So if I run up to you, you run away, but when I run off, you start chasing me again?" The ink demon paused, then nodded. "Well, how am I supposed to get a sweet selfie with you if I can't even get close?" Bendy stared at him. "Fine, _fine,_ whatever. Let's just get this done with."

Henry ran through the hallway, music kicking up as he was chased, before he found an open door and slammed it behind him, a board falling into place to keep it shut. There was a banging sound at the door.

"Don't act like you wanted to get me _now_ ," Henry snapped. "You made your choice; live with it." The banging sound stopped. "That's what I thought. I _know_ I didn't raise no creepy creep, but I hoped that I also didn't raise no coward!"

Henry stomped away, further into the room… when a can of bacon soup rolled towards him. Henry stopped. "Pretty underwhelming jumpscare, Joey," he muttered before calling out: "Hello? Someone there? I know you're in here. Come out and show yourself."

There was a moment of silence… then the sound of echoing footsteps surrounded Henry. A tall drink of water walked into the light.

"…Boris?" The toon nodded. "No…. no _way…"_ Henry took a step towards the good boi… and then ran at him. "BORIS MY SNICKER'S BAR WHAT'S GOIN ON?!" Henry high fived the confused wolf and hugged him. "Best. Plot twist. YET!"

 **To Be Continued… Only If You Want It.**

* * *

When I was in middle school, there was a girl (we'll call her V) who would always greet me by calling me a Snicker's bar and high fiving me. She was an okay person, but I wasn't a huge fan of her, either. She was nice enough, but claimed to be a fan of Doctor Who (which I don't own) despite not knowing anything about it.

So… like I said, I skipped some recordings, namely Norman's and Susie's tapes. There were just _so many_ , and I got bored of them quickly. If you have any suggestions for how to write recording reactions, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Anyway, there's a poll on my profile (though I don't think it works if you're on a phone), so… please vote if you can? I'd really appreciate it.

So, what did you think? Boring, repetitive, etc.? Leave a review, tell me what you thought, and I'll see you some other time… maybe. Until then!


	3. Rise and Fall

Logic: What's coming up next week?

Me: Finals!

Logic: What should you be doing?

Me: Studying!

Logic: What are you going to do today?

Me: *writes a thing*

Logic: … detention.

I probably should be studying, but I'm not taking my test till Friday and Sunday, so I think I can get away with a little slacking off. I hope you like this. See you at the bottom of the chapter. Also, I can't remember if I explained this last chapter, but the slurred "Let's just jump into it" line is from jacksfilms, as is "Irish PewDiePie". Check him out, if you like.

* * *

Chapter Three: Rise and Fall

 **The Wolf's Safe House**

"Captain's Log: I think it's three PM of the same day," Henry said into his phone, not bothering to aim the camera at his face. "Hello, everyone. Sorry for not posting for a few hours. I've been busy playing poker with my now living ink child, Boris the Wolf. We've played like forty rounds or something, and I still keep winning with the most Go Fish pairs. Anyway, I'm bored, so I think I'll ask Boris to tag along with me as I explore the studio. So lesh jusht jump into it."

Henry stretched lazily and got up off the bed. There was a song playing on a radio in the main room of Boris's apparent safe house. There was also the sound of a clock ticking loudly right in his ear. Henry panned his camera around as he entered the bathroom.

"I have no reflection," he noted as he looked into the broken mirror opposite the two toilet stalls. "I must be a vampire. Wait, let me check…" He bared his teeth, then realized how stupid that was. "I'd stick my finger in my mouth to feel for fangs, but I don't wanna taste any more ink and bacon soup than I have to. Let's check the stalls."

The right stall opened up, revealing a dirty toilet bowl. The other stall was locked. Henry tried to press himself into the gap between the stall wall and door, but the barrier that could have let him inside was too strong, it seemed. "Well, hopefully there are no important secrets or cheats in that stall," Henry explained as he entered the main room. "Maybe Boris knows about cheat codes. I'll ask him."

Boris was sitting at a round table with a banjo by his side and a deck of playing cards in front of him. He was nodding his head and tapping fingers to the beat of the radio song.

"Hey, buddy," Henry said, picking up Boris's free hand and fist bumping it. "I'm going to explore the studio, if you want to come with me. It'll be you, me, and my…" He checked his phone. "…four viewers! Wow, you must be a viewer magnet or something, pal." Boris took back his free hand and pointed at the door on the other side of the room.

Henry walked over to it. "Looks like we're not getting out of here that easy. We need to open the door but the lever is missing," he explained to his audience. "Boris probably has it." He looked at the cinnamon roll, still nodding and tapping his fingers to the music. "Have you seen that lever around? Or are you holding it hostage until I give you something?"

Boris continued to nod, though whether it was in acknowledgement or in rhythm to the music, Henry didn't know. "We could play more poker," Henry offered. "I'll even let you have a handicap of two Go Fish pairs—" Boris grabbed the deck of cards and chucked it into a nearby trashcan.

"…Food, then?" More nodding. "Alright, I hope you like bacon soup."

 **After Finding the Soup**

Henry poured the three cans of soup into the pot on the stove and turned up the heat. He stirred it once, then peered around the corner of the "kitchen".

"Cool beans," he said as he paused the video and took a selfie with the amalgamation of cardboard cutouts of his ink children for a thumbnail and Instagram selfie quota. "Hashtag: Amalgamatink. Hashtag: Son's Art Day." He unpaused the video and turned to go back to the kitchen, nudging a chair as he went. Wait…

"Why can I move this chair?" Henry asked aloud. "Nothing else in this environment moves when I push it. Therefore…" He jumped onto the chair. "Lookit me go whoops!" The chair fell apart under him and he fell on the floor. Boris poked his head around the corner. "I'm okay!" Henry gave his ink child a thumbs up. Boris stared at him for a second before motioning in the stove's direction. Henry crawled to his feet, made sure his phone hadn't broken in the fall, and poured the hot soup into a bowl.

He set the bowl in front of Boris and jumped when Boris immediately handed him a lever. "That was, like… _way_ too fast, buddy," Henry wheezed. "It's almost like you just wanted to send me on a fetch quest to lengthen the game play—wait…" Boris looked up at him, not touching the soup. "…Bad dog."

 **Knick-Knack Patty-Whack, Give that Dog a Bone**

"Now you see, folks," Henry explained to his audience, "in a horror puzzle game like this, an exit to the rest of the map usually means you can't go back. Before we leave, let's make sure Boris wants to come with, and… hang on." Henry put his free hand to his chin and took a selfie (Hashtag: Thinking Hard or Hardly Thinking?). "While I was looking for soup, I saw something. It wasn't glowing, but wouldn't be cool if…" He went back to the bed and shone his camera flashlight at a long bone by a chest. "…And then you…" Henry picked up the bone. "…And finally, you…" He walked back to where Boris was waiting for him by the exit and shoved the bone in the toon's mouth. "Frick YEAH!" Henry cheered. He hugged his live ink son and took another selfie with him (Hashtag: Good Dog. Hashtag: Best Friend). "Let's see what's out there," he said, "don't wander off."

 **Little Miracles in the Dark**

"You tell me, guys: is this a closet or a port-a-potty?" Henry and Boris stared at the Little Miracles Station. Henry pulled the door open, stepped inside, and closed the door behind him. There was a tiny slot he could peer through, just high enough for him to see out of. "Oh, _geez,_ " Henry groaned. "A hiding place. What a time to add a new mechanic. What are we supposed to be hiding from?"

Henry came out of the station and continued with Boris to a dark doorway. Henry flicked on his phone's flashlight and aimed it into the dark hall. Boris picked up a thing from a nearby desk. "What the heck is that?" Henry asked. "It looks like a box with a light bulb stuck on it." Boris shrugged and turned on the light. "Whatever floats your boat, my dude," Henry said.

They panned their lights around the hall at the turning gears and clanking metal pieces. They were quiet for a moment, letting the rhythmic chimes of the clockwork-like hall surround them. Finally, they came to a door that was locked. Another door shut behind them.

"Don't worry, I got this," Henry said. Using L33T H4XOR skillz, he punched the door with his free hand, looked Boris in the eye, said, "I'm in," and passed out on the floor.

 **Heavenly Toys Workshop**

Henry woke up with his phone gripped in his good hand and bandages wrapped around the bloody knuckles of his free hand. The door he had hacked into was open. He checked to make sure that the phone was still working before entering. The hall split into two paths that visibly went to the same room. "This is clearly setting up for a choice soon," he told his viewers. "Maybe this game will have multiple endings? That'd be super rad."

He looked between the halls before flipping his phone and going to the left hall when it landed face up. "Wow." He looked around the room. "I don't remember any of this…" The room had high ceilings, another Little Miracles Station, and a waterfall of ink cascading from a sign that read "Heavenly Toys". Some music played as he panned around the room. "I'm gonna have to ask Sammy to do a remix of this song for my ending theme. If he's still alive, anyway." He paused at a Beandy the Dancing Bean plush and poked it. It squeaked at him. "D'aw," he cooed. "I love my sweet ink son."

He went behind the sign and saw a thing. What was that thing even called, anyway? He could look it up, sure, but it seemed hipper to just call it "a thing". He poked it and it made a "Ching!" sound. "Punching in," Henry muttered to himself.

There was also a switch, but it wasn't glowing. There were wires on the floor that led into a hallway next to the thing. He followed them to the back room, where there was something blocking a door near the back. "Why is there always something blocking the door?" He grumbled. "Seriously, Joey. There are only so many fetch quest type dealios a dude can take."

He saw some toys stuck in the gears of the room (what kind of room needs gears?) and began to pluck them out. The wheels slowly started turning as he removed the toys. Suddenly, he saw a glowing tape recorder. "Sweet, more lore." He hit play and put the phone to the speaker.

"I don't be seein' what the big deal is," the voice said. Henry's mouth popped open like a fish. "So what if I went and painted some of the Bendy dolls with a crooked smile? That's sure no reason for Mr. Drew to be flyin' off the handle at me. And if he really wants to be so helpful, he could be tellin' me what I'm to be doing with this warehouse I got full of that angel whatchamacallit. Not a scrap of that mess be a-sellin'. Probably have to melt it all down to be rid of it all."

The tape stopped playing.

"…Yo…." Henry said. "YOOOOO! It's Irish PewDiePie! I mean Shawn Flynn. Yeah."

 **Further into the Angel's Den**

Henry pulled the lever in the work room and the strange shelf conveyor belt moved to show the door. He opened it and found himself in a room full of angel memorabilia. A window to a room was in front of him. "She's quite a gal," Henry read the sign above the window aloud. Suddenly, most of the lights turned off, and small TV screens flickered on, showing—

"Alice Angel!" Henry cheered. "My ink daughter! We _have_ to meet her at some point, right? Like with Boris?"

Alice's voice filled the room, singing about herself, to herself. Two spotlights turned on, aiming at a door with a star on it. Henry got closer to the window, anticipating the coming of his—

"I'M ALICE ANGEL!" A woman with a half-melted face screamed and popped up right in front of Henry, who also screamed and fell backwards as the woman smashed the window with her fists. All the lights went off, the only other sound being the woman cackling.

"I see you there," the woman's voice said when she presumably calmed down. "A new fly in my endless web. Come along now. Let's see if you're worthy to walk with angels."

The lights came back on. The window was broken, but the woman—Alice Angel, it seemed—was gone. Henry stared at the broken glass from his spot on the floor.

"…That was kind of hot."

 **Demon or Angel?**

Henry stared at the cross-road sign. "See, _this_ was what I was talking about," he told his declining audience. "That two-way path earlier was a warning for this choice. There's gotta be a way to know which is the right one." He peered down the demon path as far as he could, then down the angel path. "Welp, only one way to determine this." He paused the video and flipped his phone like a coin. It fell back side up. "We take the demon path, then," he said once he unpaused the video. "Sorry for the pause, folks; didn't want any of you to get motion sickness."

The floor of the demon path was covered in ink, but Henry sloshed through regardless. He stopped near a glowing recorder and hit the play button. "There's nothing wrong with dreaming," the voice said.

"It's Joey Drew!" Henry yelled into the phone for no real reason.

"Wishing for the impossible is just human nature. That's how I got started. Just a pencil and a dream. We all want everything without even having to lift a finger. They say you just have to believe. Belief can make you succeed. Belief can make you rich. Belief can make you powerful. Why, with enough belief, you can even cheat death itself! Now that… is a beautiful and positively silly thought."

"I think that's the first time we've heard Joey's voice!" Henry said. "It _has_ been thirty years since I saw him, as well."

 **The Reunion**

"ACK!" Henry shrieked at the Bendy cutout that popped up from behind the corner of the hall. "Alright, Bendy, I've had enough!" Henry strode to the cutout. "I didn't raise no creepy-creep, you lil' punk! I—ACK! AGAIN!"

Boris was standing next to the cutout, bone still in his mouth. "Boris!" Henry chided, booping Boris's snoot with his free hand. "You scared me half to death! I would have hoped that you weren't a creepy-creep, either, but I guess not." He stopped booping the snoot and sighed. "Anyway, I'm glad to see you again. Where'd you go after I hacked the door?"

Boris held up a piece of pipe. "Oh, sweet, a weapon. I miss my ax." He turned the camera to face himself. "I know what I said!"

 **The Butcher Gang**

"Looks like to open this, we're going to need to throw two levers at once," Henry explained to Boris and the audience. "You get this one, Boris. I'll find the other."

Henry turned the camera down at the floor and followed the wire as it turned a few corners. It ended at a familiar poster on the wall. "Ah, yes, the Butcher Gang," Henry explained. "Charley, Barley, and Edgar. I didn't work with these guys much, but—"

Charley burst his ugly mug through the poster and screamed: "AAAAH!"

"AAAAH!" Henry screamed back and beaned Charley over the head with his pipe. Charley made a dying noise and turned into a puddle of ink, which quickly disappeared. "Like, jeez, man," Henry muttered as he pulled his assigned lever. Boris presumably did the same and the door opened. "Hope we never have to see things like him again," Henry told the audience.

 **The Elevator and The Tasks: Part One**

"What's the haps, B-man?" Henry asked, following Boris into the elevator they found. The gates shut and the elevator began to descend.

"You're so interesting," Alice Angel's voice came over the intercom, "so… different. I have to say, I'm an instant fan."

"I thought you were an angel."

"Looks like you've got a date with an angel!" Alice seemed to be ignoring him, or maybe she couldn't hear him at all. "Come to me now. Level nine."

"Yes, ma'am—" Henry began.

"…Just follow the screams."

"…Less yes ma'am," Henry finished. The elevator finally reached the ninth floor.

"Come on," the angel purred, "step out of your cage. There's a whole twisted world out here."

Henry followed Boris out of the elevator and down a flight of stairs. There was a head model of Alice Angel holding a sign that said "She's quite a gal!" They waited for the door under this sign to open. Boris ran through as soon as there was room for him to squeeze through.

"Boris, where are you going?" Henry called after his ink son. He hurried after him as fast as his old man legs could carry him. He reached Boris and stopped. "Oh…" Henry looked around the room. It was big, with a pit of ink burbling under examination tables that each held a cartoon character, namely the Butcher Gang and Boris.

Boris (the alive one) was staring at Boris (the dead one). Henry put a hand to his mouth. "Boris," he whispered. "This is… _this is_ …!"

He flipped his phone around and took a selfie. "… So _cool!_ " He opened up Instagram and posted the selfie. When he looked up, Boris was staring at him, bone still in his mouth. "Feeling blue, huh," he asked the toon. "Hang on, I got an idea." Henry put his phone carefully in the dead Boris's hand, looked at the living Boris, and said, "I'll krump with you, Boris." And he did.

Boris stared at the old man for a moment before returning his gaze to the dead Boris.

"What?" Henry asked as he took back his phone and walked over a bridge of planks along the inky surface. "Did I use that meme wrong?"

"Look around," Alice's voice said. "It took so many of them to make me so beautiful."

"I mean, I guess you're kind of pretty, but your face is melting off—"

"Anything less than perfect was left behind."

"I… see… I think?"

"I had to do it. She made me."

"There's a she now? I thought we were just dealing with a he?" Henry spotted a glowing tape recorder and pressed play.

"Who would have thought? Me, having lunch with Joey Drew!"

"Isn't that Susie Campbell's voice?" Henry pondered aloud. "She was the original voice actor for Alice Angel… Does that mean this Alice is…?"

"Apparently, times are tougher than I thought. For a moment there, I thought I'd be stuck with the check. But I gotta say, he wasn't at all what I expected. Quite the charmer. He even called me Alice. I liked it." The tape clicked to a stop.

"That's one of the tape speakers The Author skipped last chapter," Henry explained to the five or whatever viewers.

"HEY!" The Author snapped.

"Anyway, let's keep going." A door near the end of the plank bridge was opening. He walked through it and went along a hallway for a bit, ending at a room with a window showing… _showing…_!

"Noice," Henry snapped a picture of the Butcher Gang member being electrocuted by the angel. It continued screeching for a moment before it stopped moving. The angel was quiet for a moment. Then she turned her attention to the old man.

"Now we come to the question," she said. "Do I kill you? Do I tear you apart to my heart's delight? The choices of the beautiful are unbearable. How's a girl to choose?"

"Hey, I already said something like that!" Henry cried indignantly.

"Take this little freak, for instance." She gestured to the ink creature. "He crawled in here, trailing his tainted ink to my door. It could have touched me. It could have pulled me back!" Her voice heightened in pitch towards the end of that sentence. "Do you know what it's like? Living in the dark puddles?"

"Not really," Henry said.

"It's a buzzing, screaming well of voices. Bits of your mind swimming like… like fish in a bowl! The first time I was born from its inky womb, I was a wiggling, pussing, shapeless slug. The second time… well…" She smiled right at Henry. "…It made me an angel!" She lowered her gaze. "I will not let the demon touch me again."

"So, there _is_ a demon running around here!" Henry said.

"I'm so close now. So… almost perfect." She sighed. "Yes, I will spare you, for now. Better yet… I'll even let you ascend and leave this place. If you will do a few eensey, weensey little favors for me first."

"Is leaving the goal of the game?" Henry asked. "If Joey wanted me to leave, why invite me back in the first place?"

"Return to the lift, my little errand boy. We have work to do." She pressed a button and metal shutters slammed over the window.

 **The Elevator and The Tasks: Part Two**

"I'll make this simple," the angel's voice said when Henry returned to the room with the elevator. "Look for valve panels. Turn the little wheels. Then bring me their power cores. Please don't make me regret sparing you. I can always change my mind." There was the sound of metal against metal, and a thing opened up, containing a plunger.

"Fetch quests," Henry moaned. "Why is it always fetch quests?"

"There are so few rules to our world now, so little truths," Susie (we'll just call her Susie now) said. "But there is one rule we all know and respect down here. Beware the ink demon. Stay out in the open for too long and he will find you."

"And now she's gonna exposit all over me. Great."

 **The Elevator and The Tasks: Part Three**

"You're quite the efficient little errand boy, aren't you?" Susie asked when Henry got the last power core.

"I'll bet," Henry muttered as he returned to the ninth floor and put the cores into the turner thing.

"My machines are hungry. Bring me more spare parts." The turny thingy opened, revealing a wrench. Henry groaned.

 **The Elevator and The Tasks: Part Four**

"Ah, that should be plenty. Return them to me. And try not to die on the way back."

"Oh, I'll bet that'd just kill your day, wouldn't it?" Henry grumbled as he called up the elevator.

"Sammy said I had talent. He was always a good liar. Still, he was always a very handsome man."

"Oh, I'll **bet,** " Henry said through gritted teeth as he put the gears in the turny thing.

"Have you seen them? The swollen ones? They're just stuffed full of extra thick ink. It makes me sick. And yet, it's the perfect thing for keeping myself together."

"Oh, **really?** "

"If you're going to catch them, you're going to have to learn to move quietly. I have something that you'll need."

The revolvy thingy opened, revealing a syringe of some kind.

"Of-freaking-course. Why not?" Henry snapped as he nabbed the tool.

 **The Elevator and The Tasks: Part Five**

"How sickening! Makes my skin crawl!"

"You wanna know what makes my skin crawl? Gosh-forsaken **fetch quests!** "

"But the task is done. Bring me back my equipment, please." Henry did as he was told. "You see those grinning ink demons? Let's remove them, shall we? I've got just the tool—"

Henry's screams overpowered Susie's voice.

 **The Elevator and The Tasks: Part Six**

"Ah, now that was fun!"

"For you, maybe…"

"Oh, but I forgot to mention… he hates it when I do that. I would hide, if I were you."

"Nah," Henry went to the nearest elevator button and pressed it. "He won't kill me anyway, so why waste more time? Joey Drew, I hate you." He put the ax back in the thing.

"The disgusting wretches have wandered my halls; have gone unchecked! They're trying to drag me back to the darkness! Don't let them take your angel! Purge them, one by one! Smash them into puddles! Kill them!"

"Also nah." Henry sat on the stairs, rested his elbows on his knees, and held his chin in his hands. A few ink creatures popped up, saw that Henry was done, and disappeared just as quickly.

"…"

Henry glanced up at the ceiling.

"…So quiet," Susie finally said. "Like a welcoming grave. I like the silence, don't you?"

"There'd be more silence if you just shut up~!" Henry said in a sing-song way.

"I hate having work unfinished. Fortunately, I have you to pick up the pieces."

"UUUGH!"

"But you'll have to go even deeper. Down, down, down into the abyss. Take the lift down; say hello to an old friend."

"After this, I will **have** no old friends."

"Sending you a little present. A little firepower. Take good care of it. It belonged to someone very special."

Henry perked slightly. "Firepower sounds cool, I guess." The drop box thing opened, revealing—

"SICK! A GUN!" Henry picked up the tommy gun… which immediately melted into a puddle.

"Oops. I forgot. It's a little hard to get a hold of. Oh well. Better luck next time."

Henry stared at the ink in his hands and on his phone. Boris came out of the elevator and patted his back.

 **The Elevator and The Tasks: Part Seven**

"This is death," Henry told his audience when he reached the bottom floor. "I must have been a bad person, 'cause now I'm in—"

"Ssh," Susie said. "There he is. The Projectionist. Skulking in the darkness."

"Sounds like my kind of guy."

"You be sure to stay out of his light, if you don't want trouble. Just bring me back the pieces I need."

"Well, no one else has tried to kill me for real yet, so what's the harm?" Henry reached the bottom of the stairs and waded into the ink. "HELLO! I'm an intruder! Come get me!" Nothing happened.

"Coward," Henry grumbled as he turned on a glowing tape recorder.

"Now I'm not lookin' for trouble. It's just the nature of us projectionists to seek out the dark places."

"It's Norman Polk!" Henry yelled. "Yet another person whose audio recording we skipped last chapter!"

"Are you going to laud that over me forever?" The Author snapped.

"If I don't, then who will?"

"You see, I've learned the ins and outs of this studio. I know how to avoid being bothered by the likes of this… company. That projectionist, they always say, creeping around, he's just looking for trouble. Well trouble or not, I see everything. They don't even know when I'm watchin'. Even when I'm right behind them." The tape clicked off.

Something smacked Henry in the back. He yelped and turned around, seeing—

"The projectionist! Probably Norman Polk! Finally, someone who'll actually try to kill me! He paused the video and aimed it at himself and the monster. "Death selfie!" The projectionist roared and swiped at Henry's phone. "Hey, my mommy got me this phone! You can't have it!" The projectionist roared again and lunged.

Henry and the projectionist chased each other around the bottom floor, Henry collecting inky hearts as he went. When he got them all—

"Tell me. Were they still writhing in your hands? Bring them to me now! I don't like to wait."

"Gee, it's as if you're the only one," Henry hissed through his teeth as he entered the elevator and left the projectionist very confused. It took him a second to see that Boris was not doing well. "Hey buddy, you okay?" He asked gently, patting Boris's head. Boris was covering his eyes with both hands and still had the bone in his mouth.

"It seems we've reached the end of my to do list, my little errand boy."

"Halleluiah!" Henry shouted.

"I hope you enjoyed our time together."

"No, I hated it."

"I'll always treasure it. Return to the lift. It's time to go home."

Henry skipped like a man into the elevator. "As much as I'd like to say I enjoyed this game, the fetch quests ruined it for me. Five out of ten. Lost five years of my life." He turned to Boris, who was looking less nervous now. "We're goin' home, buddy. Now mom will know that my career does get me friends!"

"Have you ever wondered what Heaven is like?" Susie's voice asked.

"Yeah, you're not in it."

"I like to dream that it's quite beautiful. A soft valley of green grass, blanketed by a warm sun. I don't think I'll ever get to see it. Are you ready to ascend, my little errand boy? The heavens are waiting."

"About dang time!"

There was a sniffling sound. "No," Henry said. "Don't make me feel bad for you." The crying changed to laughter. Henry looked at Boris, who was covering his face again. "…Uh-oh."

"Did you really think I'd let you steal from me?!" The elevator stopped… then began to fall, scraping metal filled Henry's ears and sparks flew around him. "Did you really think I'd just let you go?! No, Henry! I know who you are, and I know why you're here!"

 _It's not like I haven't been hiding my intentions, lady,_ Henry thought as he tried to keep a death grip on his phone.

"You will not stop what needs to be done! Now come down, and bring me back my Boris!"

Henry gasped. "My son!"

"It's the most perfect Boris I've ever seen! And I want it! I need it! I want its insides so I can be beautiful again! Don't you understand? Don't you get it? Give him to me! Or better yet, I'll take him! Once… you're… dead!"

 **Loss of a Friend**

Henry's vision was dark, but he could see Boris shaking his shoulders faintly. Something was coming behind him. Henry raised his phone. "…Death selfie?" He asked weakly. Boris was yanked away, and Henry passed out.

 **To Be Continued…? Only if you Want it!**

* * *

So, yeah, this took me from about two thirty to about eight to write. I really seem like I don't want to study, huh? Well, you're not _too_ far off, I guess. I'll start studying closer to test time, don't worry.

This chapter was as much of a pain to write as it was for people to play. It's based on the original version of chapter three, because I couldn't be bothered to find a playthrough of a more updated version. Sue me. (Please do not.)

But never mind my problems, how about your problems? Leave a review, tell me what you thought, and I'll see you later! Until then!


	4. Colossal Wonders

Whoa, whaaat? A Gamer Henry chapter? It's what I've been searching for my whole life!

So yeah, I'm back. For today. It'll probably be a while until the final chapter, should you wish to see it. I hope you like this one, I worked since twelve PM on it. See you at the bottom of the page.

* * *

Chapter Four: Colossal Wonders

* * *

 **The Aftermath of the Fetch Quests**

 _Alright, Joey… I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see…_

Henry's words from the start of his adventure echoed in his head as he regained consciousness. He rolled onto his side and groaned. The impact of the elevator crash had left him breathless and shaken. He managed to pull himself to his feet and look around.

The Elevator was in shambles, sparks and ink flying everywhere. There was a sign by a hallway that had a large S on it, probably the name of the floor Henry was on.

Henry rubbed his head and shook the last of the stars out of his eyes. "Oh man… Oh, _man…_ " Henry moaned, almost near tears. "My phone is missing again! If Mommy finds out I lost it, she'll—" Something reflected in the corner of his eye. "Never mind, here it is!" He picked up his precious and examined it. Sixty five percent battery, and even more ink smeared across the screen.

"Good enough for me," Henry said as he took a near-death selfie of him and the elevator. "This thumbnail should definitely score up some viewers. Speaking of which…" Henry flipped the camera around to show what he was seeing and hit the record button.

"Hello again, everyone. My name is Henry, and welcome back to my live stream let's play of Joey Drew Studios. Last time, that dumb angel Susie Campbell stole my good boy Boris! Obviously, that is—" He took a deep breath. "UNACCEPTABLEEEEEEE!" He screamed into the hall. "Anyway, we're going to get him back. Stick around for more quirky and unique commentary that you won't find anywhere else. Lesh jusht jump into it!"

 **Grant Cohen and the Inconvenient Fetch Quest**

"Work hard, work happy, huh?" Henry aimed his camera at the sign outside Grant Cohen's office. He opened the door and panned his phone around. "Whoa…"

The office within was smothered in ink and writings, talking about financial stuff that would give any college kid a heart attack. There was a glowing tape recorder hidden in a puddle of bubbling ink on the desk. Henry turned up the speaker sensitivity on his phone, held it to the recorder, and pressed the play button.

Henry listened to the screams of agony for a few seconds, unaware of how broken his viewer's headphones and speakers would be. The screams finally stopped. "…Dang," was all Henry could think to say.

He looked more thoroughly around the room, stopping at a valve that was hidden in a dark corner. "This looks like it should be a collectable item, but it's not glowing, so I guess not. Let's go back to the place where the hallway split up that The Author didn't specifically mention."

"I can't mention _every_ little thing about this game!" The Author snapped as she typed away on her laptop. "Do you have _any_ idea how hard it is to keep this story funny while trying to make sure the reader doesn't get bored from over detailing everything?"

"That sounds like a whole lot of your problem. Anyway, backtracking."

Henry walked to the door to the archives. As he approached the door, a glowing valve shaped thing appeared on the door. "Definitely something missing here. Why couldn't I just pick up the valve _before_ I got here? Was I supposed to come here first? How should I have known? Bad game design, Joey."

 **After Getting the Gear: The Archives**

"Sick nasty, dog." Henry snapped a picture of the ink figures stuck in poses on the stage in the Archive Room Thing. They were all standing around a giant Bendy statue with a sign over it reading "He Will Set Us Free".

Henry tried to jump on top of the stage to no avail. It seemed his jumping attribute was not enough to join this acting troupe. He couldn't quite touch the closest one, either. After trying for a minute, he huffed in frustration and walked around the stage to the back of the room.

The back of the room was round, with bookshelves and safes surrounding a table with a tape recorder on it. Henry clicked play and held the phone to the speaker.

"They told me I was perfect for the role," Susie Campbell's voice said. "Absolutely perfect. Now Joey's going around, saying things behind closed doors. I can always tell. Now he wants to meet again tomorrow, says he has an 'opportunity' for me. I'll hear him out. But if that smooth talker thinks he can double cross an angel and get away with it, well, oh, he's got another thing coming. Alice… ooh, she doesn't like liars."

"Huh," Henry said when the tape turned off. "I guess Susie really got into the whole 'I'm Alice Angel' thing."

He walked along the outer bookshelf and saw a glowing book sticking out of the shelf near a door with five lightbulbs over it as well as the word "Private." Henry pushed the book into the shelf and looked to see a lightbulb turn on. "So that's how it works," he said. "This shouldn't take long, thank the lord."

The third book he pushed in made the safe doors swing open wildly and screams whistle past his ears. He nearly dropped his phone, juggling it with both hands as he tried to figure out how to cover both ears. After a second, the noise stopped. "No likey," was all he said as he cautiously pushed in the last two books and went through the private door.

 **Enter the Darkness**

"How did Joey fit all this in one studio?" Henry asked his shrinking audience (2/10: not enough Boris). He panned the phone around the cavernous hole before him and the wooden stairs creeping along the side. He glanced at the hanging cages and pipes spilling ink into the void as he climbed up the stairs and stopped at a contraption with a glowing gear shaped thing and a glowing lever.

"I can get across here if I can find a way to fix this," he explained to his viewers. "How to do that is the real question, though." He turned to the machine behind him that had a turning mechanism and a lever. The turning thing showed a picture of a coffee mug. When he turned it a few more times, there was a picture of a gear. "Okay, that solves that, but how do I get the gear?"

Henry went down the short hall next to the machine and found a pipe with a lever and a valve near it. He pulled the lever and the pipe rose from the ground, revealing a small pool of ink. He turned the lever and an ink creature with a blob of loose ink on its back popped up. Gingerly, Henry touched the loose ink piece and it appeared in his hand, the creature sinking back into the blackness. Henry stared at the blob, not entirely sure what just happened. Suddenly something clicked and he snapped his fingers, nearly dropping the ink.

He hurried back to the strange machine and put the ink into the slot before turning the crank. The machine shook for a bit before _ding!_ A gear popped out. "I guess this is a mini ink machine or something?" Henry said, more to himself than the viewers. "But why would Joey want mini ink machines? Were they prototypes?"

He shook the thought from his head, put the gear on the crank thing, and pulled the lever. A wooden basket slowly made its way to Henry's side of the cavern and stopped with a quiet bang. Henry carefully stepped in, just as the basket started to go back to where it had been.

It stopped at the midpoint between the two spots. Henry jumped and nearly dropped his phone into the abyss. Some creepy music played as the basket… slowly… moved…

Henry climbed out of the basket and nearly kissed the sweet earth before realizing he was inside and there was no earth to kiss "That was a completely unnecessary jump scare!" He complained as he opened the door to a hallway. "There better not be any more—" Some arms popped out of the hall walls. "Fricking heck!"

 **My Little Errand Boy: Ink is Magic**

"I see you there, my little errand boy," Susie's voice echoed above Henry. "Your angel is always watching."

"No more fetch quests!" Henry wept, looking up at the high ceiling of the room he was in. It was full of moving chains and more stairs.

"What is it that keeps you going?" She asked. "Is it the thrill of the hunt? The thirst for your freedom? Or, perhaps… you're just looking for a little, friendly, wolf?"

"Boris!" Henry cried, shaking his fist angrily at the ceiling. "You better let go of my son, or I'll—"

"Better hurry, errand boy. Boris is having trouble staying in one piece."

"Hang on, buddy pal chum friendly friend chummy chum pal," Henry said. "I'll save you, Boris.

 **"When Do We Go Home?"**

Is the summary of the question the ink person above Henry's head was asking.

"That's the question everyone's asking, buddy," Henry said as he snapped a selfie of the two of them (Hashtag: Wanna go home).

"Literally, apparently," he said when he opened a door to a room full of ink people.

There were more than a dozen ink people with glowing gold eyes, just staring sadly at the old man. Henry walked past them all, slower than usual. "I think the number of NPC's in this room is lagging the game," he explained.

 **Vents**

He came to an unusually large vent opening and turned on his phone's flashlight. "This drains the battery a bit faster, but it's better than that stupid looking contraption Boris had earlier on."

He crawled carefully to a vent grate and startled a bit when Bendy popped up from the other side. "Hello, my cowardly ink son," Henry said. "Are you actually going to try to kill me this time?"

Bendy stared at his creator for a second before walking away. "I thought so. Coward. Still love you."

 **Bertram Piedmont: Part One**

"For forty years, I've built attractions that stagger the imagination. Colossal wonders—"

"Roll credits!" Henry cheered.

"—such as the world has never seen. I have earned my legacy with sweat. But right in front of everyone—high level investors, Wall Street tycoons— the ever-tactless Joey Drew introduces me, the great Bertram Piedmont, as Bertie! Like I was his child! You may be paying me, Mr. Drew, but you don't own me! I'll build you a park bigger than anything YOU could ever possibly conceive. But before you go taking any bows, Mr. Drew, know that this grand achievement will belong to me… and to me alone."

"…Huh," Henry said as he pulled the lever with "Storage 9" above it. "I guess Joey Drew started making enemies when I left. Was he seriously going to make a whole theme park without me? You're an ambitious one Mr. Drew."

 **Welcome to Bendy Hell: You're About to Die**

"Oh, _wow…_ " Henry looked around the huge, warehouse-like room. The sign just ahead of him was huge, with flickering lightbulbs around the border. The word "Land" in "Bendy Land" was crossed out with the word "Hell". There were wires all over the floor, booths, bags with unknown content, and a large door near the back of the room. This was… _This was…!_

"Neat." Henry snapped a selfie with the sign (Hashtag: Saying a Swear; Hashtag: Try and Stop Me, Mom!) and walked down the stairs to his left. He tapped another one of the things he had seen earlier and it dinged. "Punching in," he muttered as he passed. He followed some of the wires to the large door he had seen.

"Creepy fangs over the doorway…" He muttered. "I know what this is. Looks like the haunted house is the way to go, but it's gonna need some power. Hang in there, Boris. I'm coming."

Henry followed some wires to one side of the room and saw a glowing tape recorder. He hit play.

"These guys down in the workshop get to play games all day while I'm stuck cleanin' up after 'em! They keep locking themselves out of their own back room. So, I says to em, look guys, I says, you're smart, right? Here's an idea! Why not rig these games up to knock open the door if you win? It'll be fun for you guys, and it saves me the trip down here every day. They went for it like a dog to pot roast. I tell ya, if these guys don't start realizing who the real genius is, _I'm outta here!"_

Henry was quite for a moment. "…So…" he said slowly. "What you're saying, Wally Franks… is that I get to play even more games?! Heck yeah!" He grabbed the rifle for the shooting game and took aim. "This almost makes up for the fetch quests earlier! Le's go!

 **After the Shooting Game, Ball Throwing Game, and Strength Game**

"Tell me," Susie said from above, "are you having fun? I'm sure Boris doesn't mind waiting for his rescue party."

"Listen, lady," Henry snapped. "If you made me sit through a bunch of fetch quests, you'll have to sit through me playing these games. Hang on, Boris, I'll get you away from her… once I get a high score."

He noticed that a door in the corner of the room had opened and went to it. "Ha, games really do help you progress! Take that, _Mom._ " Wait…

"…Whoa…" Henry looked next to the lever with a wire leading out of the room. "That's so gross…" He was staring at three puppets shaped like Bendy with wide, dark mouths. "I love it!" Henry snapped a selfie with them (Hashtag: Bendy Puppet Pals) and pulled the lever. "That's one."

 **Research and Design**

"Looks like I've got some company up ahead," Henry explained to his, like, three viewers, aiming the camera at the landing below. The three Butcher Gang members were hanging around a statue of Bendy. "Without some kind of weapon, I don't stand a chance… is what I would say, if these guys actually wanted to kill me."

Henry walked down the stairs and past the three creatures, who turned to face him, saw he wasn't trying to avoid them, and turned right back around. Henry walked past a crying ink guy in a cage without batting an eye and entered a room full of—

"Animatronics?" Henry eyed the robot parts on the table next to the switch and the tape recorder warily. "It better not come to life when I'm not looking…" He clicked the play button on the recorder.

"The only thing that works around here is my ulcer. Half these people don't know a wrench from a dang steamroller."

"That's Lacie Benton," Henry explained. "He always got made fun of for having a girly sounding name. Mostly by me."

"Buncha morons is what they are. Spend their day in the warehouse arguin' over who's supposed to be doing what or playing these silly games. Still, I'm not complainin'. I get most of my time to myself. Suits me just fine. Only thing that bothers me is that mechanical demon in the corner. Bertram's been working on it for a month now. Says it will walk someday and maybe dance. All it does now is give me the creeps. I swear, when my back's turned... that thing's moving."

…

Henry turned around.

The robot didn't move.

Henry kept his eye on it as he flipped the switch and left. He glanced up at where he had come in and saw the door was closed. He made walked past the Butcher Gang again and flipped the switch in the other hallway.

 **Bertram Piedmont: Part Two**

Henry flipped the second switch on the main hub near the haunted house. Another door opened, this one labeled "Attraction Storage".

He went through, gaping up at the carousal-like machine in the center of the room.

"That. Is the coolest thing. I've ever seen." Henry snapped a picture. "Maybe this should be my thumbnail? There are so many good ones…"

He saw a tape recorder on a table and clicked. Something was definitely off about this one.

"The biggest park ever built, a centerfold of attractions." Bertram's voice wasn't coming from the recorder.

"Each one, more grand than the one before it. It makes my eyes come to tears at the thought… but then… oh, Mr. Drew. For all your talk of dreams, you are the true architect behind so may nightmares. I built this park. It was to be a masterpiece! MY masterpiece! And now you think you can just throw me out? Trample me to the dust and forget me? No! This is my park! My glory!"

The ground and ride in the center of the room began to quake. "You may think I've gone! But I'm… still… HERE!"

Music began to play, and the machine roared to life, swinging its arms at the floor and spinning around. The folds at the center of the ride opened, revealing a face, gaunt and angry.

"Cool." Henry aimed his phone. "Death selfie?" An arm swung around and knocked away the table the "tape" had been resting on, nearly nicking Henry. "Well, I guess that counts as a murder attempt."

Henry hurried around the room, trying to avoid being bashed over the head with a hunk of metal. He spotted an axe on the ground and grabbed it with his free hand. An arm came down next to him. He saw that there were four round metal joints on the arm that were glowing. He whacked at them with the axe and the arm fell off, making the machine spin faster.

This repeated three times, which The Author cut out so she wouldn't have to repeat the same event over and over.

The machine sparked and hissed out steam before finally coming to a stop. The face within was closed off with the metal folds, and all was quiet.

Henry took a few deep breaths. That was… really…

"AWESOME!" Henry pranced around and dropped his now broken axe. He skipped to the switch on the wall and pulled it. "That makes three. One to go."

 **Maintenance**

"Well, there's another Little Miracles thing, so I guess I have to hide from something? Hopefully from someone who'll actually try to kill me. Like Norman Polk. I liked that guy." He walked down the stairs into an ink flooded room with a train in the middle. A shaky beam of light bounced past him. "Aha! I knew it!" Henry whispered excitedly. "We gotta be sneaky, viewers. Ssssneaky." He waggled his free arm.

He sloshed carefully through the ink, keeping an eye on the Projectionist as he went. He found a glowing switch and flipped it, hurrying up a different set of stairs, flipping the switch he found up there. The lights powered down, and the light from the projectionist disappeared.

"…Huh." Henry blinked in the darkness. "I guess I killed him? Don't know how, but that must be what happened."

He went back down the stairs to the inky floor and noticed a glowing tape recorder. He clicked the play button.

"I believe there's something special in all of us," Joey Drew began. "With true inner strength, you can conquer even your biggest challenges. You just have to believe in yourself and remain honest, motivated, and above all, who you really are."

There was a pause. Then: "Okay, let's stop it right there. I can only do so many takes of this trash a day. And tell the guys in writing I want more use of the word dreaming in every message. Keep railing on that, got it? Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming! People just eat up that kind of slop. What? It's still on? Well turn it off, dang it!"

The tape clicked off. "I guess Joey was an even bigger jerk than I thought," Henry said. "I mean, I knew he had a wacky way with games, but this is just faking people out. Maybe I'll get to fight Joey and punch him in the face. That'd be cool."

He made his way back to the stairs he had first entered from, and saw a light come into focus behind him. There was a roar.

"Shoot _shootSHOOT!"_ Henry dashed up the stairs and hid in the Little Miracles station. He peered out through the little slot and saw the Projectionist looking at him through the gap. It reached an inky hand towards him, then looked to its right, roaring at… was that _Bendy?_

The ink demon and the Projectionist punched each other in the jaw a few times before Bendy grabbed his opponent by the neck and tore his head off. He tossed it at the Little Miracle station, looked through the gap right in Henry's eyes, and grabbed the body, dragging it away.

Henry stared out through the slot for one second. Two. Four. "That…" he began, "was so… COOL!" He leapt out of the Little Miracle station and did a little fancy jig. "Bendy is best boi! WOO!"

 **Mission: Rescue Boris**

Henry pulled the main lever on the electric hub and heard the door to the haunted house open. He hurried inside. This was it. One of the two reasons he was down here: to find Boris (the other reason was to kickstart his YouTube channel.) _Hang in there, Boris,_ he thought as he surveyed the scene.

There wasn't much aside from two little cart rides, only one of which was still on the rails. He sat in the one on the rails, and a canned evil laugh echoed around him. The ride moved forward, and the doors opened to more rails.

"And now, the ride truly begins, Henry," Susie's voice said. A ghost cutout popped up behind a cardboard grave. "Come in, and pretend it's all just a bad dream."

Henry rode in silence for a moment, unfazed by these childish jump scares. He was a veteran let's player, after all, despite his measly subscriber count. "It's a funny thing. How so much can fall apart so fast."

"Not that funny, but whatever," Henry mumbled.

"We never really had control at the studio. Either you were in someone's pocket, or you were putting someone in yours."

"I just drew stuff, but sure."

"I just wanted was promised to me. I just wanted to be beautiful!"

"Maybe you should work on your fetch quests first."

"Surely you can understand that."

"…Okay, I admit working on my appearance could get me more views—"

"Henry… why are you here? We're all dying to find out."

"Didn't you say you knew when we were falling down that elevator? Also, who's 'we'?"

"Do you just enjoy the terror of the drop into Hell? Because if that's the case… Hang on tight. I've got a surprise~!"

The last doors along the track opened and Henry entered a large room. It had a huge chandelier hanging over head and a bunch of bags and boxes with unknown contents scattered in the center of the room. A mini ink machine was near the back. It was also too quiet.

Henry panned the camera around the room before taking another selfie. "BRB, going to Hell. Hashtag: Haunted House. Hashtag: Surprise."

The cart came to the doors on the other side of the room. Beyond was total darkness. As Henry prepared to throw up everywhere, two huge gloved hands grabbed the front of the cart, forcing it to halt. Something—no, someone—pulled themselves into the light.

"Boris!" Henry cried. "No, no, what has she done to you?! This is… a really cool look for you!" Henry flipped the phone around. "Death selfie?" Boris tossed the cart back into the room. "Guess not."

Susie laughed maniacally as Boris stalked towards him. "Meet the new and improved Boris! I took what I wanted, and in return, I gave him so much more! And this time, there's no Ink Demon, no escape. Boris, tear him apart! Leave nothing!"

Henry dodged as Boris ran into the wall. A familiar looking blob of ink fell from the hole in his chest. Henry looked between the ink and the mini machine he had seen earlier. He grabbed the ink blob and ran to the machine and turned until he saw a bone. "Yes! Kill him with kindness!" He put the ink in the machine and turned the crank. A bone popped out. Unfortunately…

"NOOO! I can't pick it up!" Boris punched him in the back. "Freaking OW!" Henry turned the machine again until he saw a wrench. "This'll have to do!" He whacked Boris in the back, breaking the wrench.

Boris slammed his fists on the ground, throwing Henry away a few feet. More ink spurted from the toon's chest. Henry grabbed it and made another wrench, hitting Boris again.

A cart rolled by on the rail and Boris grabbed it, tossing it at Henry's head, who dove and just barely avoided it. This much action was too much for Boris, and more ink blobs fell from his sloshing organs. Henry made another wrench.

He swung.

"NO! No, no, no! Why can't you ever just die?!"

Boris lay limply on the ground. Henry knelt next to his dead ink son, feeling a tear trace down his cheek. He looked at his phone for a moment before turning the camera to face him. "Boris is gone," he said. "I might just leave the episode here and—"

"AAARRGH!"

SHING!

Henry looked behind him to see Susie Campbell with a sword through her heart. The sword was pulled back out, and Susie fell to the floor. Henry looked up…

An Alice with her hair in a ponytail and a Boris with a mechanical arm were standing there, staring at him.

…

Henry held up his phone. "…Selfie?" The Cy-Boris beaned him over the head with a pipe and knocked him out.

* * *

 **To Be Concluded… Should You So Desire.**

* * *

What a way to end a chapter! This was actually kind of nice to work on. Gave me something to do all day besides sit on my bed and watch YouTube, that's for sure.

So. What next? I do have a few ideas for the last chapter, but given how long it took me to write this, I probably won't do it until Summer Break or something. Strap in for the long haul.

Did you like it? Leave a review and tell me what you thought. I also have a poll on my profile, so please take a look! I'll see you all later!


	5. The Last Reel

Bum…. Bumdebumdedebuum!

It's-a-me! Yours The Author! Coming to you late for my twentieth birthday present to myself… finishing this story! Hooray!

So, college is done for me…for now. I'll be back there sometime in mid-August, but for now… I write!

Now, this chapter might have a slightly different feel to it, given that it's been so long since I wrote for this story. I had a lot of ideas for comedy in this chapter, so I hope you like them! Unfortunately, I'm the only real BatIM fan in my house, so I couldn't get a good judgement on whether this was a good chapter or not (my little sister, The Deviant, thought it was too long, but I think it's consistent with the other chapter lengths… right? Let me know with a review!).

I'm also kind of bummed because I'm sick and I can't hang out with my friend who's moving to Alabama on June 1st, or go to the anime con downtown this weekend, or go to a friend's wedding, so pretty please review?

Anyway, I won't keep you. Have fun with this chapter!

* * *

Chapter Five: The Last Reel

* * *

 **The Holding Cell: Part One**

"Captain's log… I think it's Saturday now." Henry blinked slowly and peered through the grates opposite his cot. The cell was small and dirty, with metal grates on one side of the outer wall and wooden boards on the other side. There were ink splashes around the room, and papers with small sketches on the floor. "This reminds me of the time I taped myself in a box and mailed myself to my own house," Henry said quietly.

The room had a certain tension to it, a kind that couldn't be interrupted with loud voices. Even his captors were fairly quiet when they spoke. Now, however, there was the soft sound of humming coming from the outside.

Henry slowly pushed himself up from his cot and stood, bringing his phone with him. He peered through the boards at the angel.

She had her hair in a ponytail, as she had since they had met. She was wearing the same black dress as Susie had been wearing, though this angel also had boots and a ripped jacket over her top. She was painting something Henry couldn't see with a bucket of ink and a brush on the wall. The song she was humming sounded… familiar, reminding Henry of those songs he'd hear in his cartoons.

"I know that song," he said, flinching a bit at how loud his voice seemed in the quiet. The angel stopped humming.

"Everyone knows that song," she replied. She turned to look at him. "Who are you? Why are you here?"

"I was invited by an old friend… and now I can't leave. Like I was telling my viewers, it's like being—"

"Taped in a box and mailing yourself; yeah, I heard you. Who even watches your videos?"

"Only the coolest dudes and dudettes. You know. Anyway, you were saying?"

"You know more than we do. One minute, we don't even exist… just thoughts. And the next minute… this place."

"Are you gonna let me out of here?"

The angel set down her brush. "Down here, strangers aren't good things. How can we trust you? We don't even know what you are."

"My name is Henry." He lifted his phone to his face so the viewers could see his gorgeous state of being. "I used to work here, until I quit to become a famous YouTuber. Which, obviously, is working out perfectly so don't me about it."

The angel hesitated, looking away for a moment. "I… honestly don't know my name. So, they call me Alice. But I'm no angel."

"Who even calls you Alice?"

"'Only the coolest dudes and dudettes. You know.'"

"Haha, very funny."

"You go back and rest. We'll talk again later." Alice picked up her brush and began writing again.

 **The Holding Cell: Part Two**

"It's only for a few hours, no need to worry. I won't go far, only up to level six. Just stay here and keep an eye on Henry, okay? I'll be back as soon as I can, I promise."

Henry put the phone camera up to the grate near his bed and watched as Alice hugged Tom (he had heard her call him Tom at some point earlier, while his phone was still offline) and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. "D'aww," Henry cooed. "Tommy has a giiirl-friiieeend!"

 _SMACK!_ Tom smacked his axe into his robot hand and glared at Henry. He walked to the side of the room that was blocked to Henry by boards and pulled up a chair, sitting in it and facing Henry as he continued to smack the axe against his hand threateningly. Henry peered through the boards, zooming in on Tom's cartoonishly angry face with his phone.

Henry reached his free arm out of the boards and made a grabbing motion with his hand. "C'mere, Tommy, I want to boop your snoot."

 _BANG!_

Tom threw the axe at Henry and it bounced off against the boards. Henry retracted his free arm. "Hmph," he said. "'Tom', more like 'Tom-me no likey.'"

 **The Holding Cell: Part Three**

"Henry?"

Henry looked up from the sketches he was painting with an inky finger and looked up at Alice. "Hang on, folks, my speedpaint series will have to pause for a moment." He stood up and saw Alice place a bowl of soup on the ledge of one of the boards.

"Here. You must be hungry. Sorry, its all we've got." Alice turned and walked away.

Henry reached for the bowl, but Tom walked up to where Alice had been standing and blocked Henry's soup with his robot arm. "Um," Henry said.

Tom watched Alice disappear down a hall on his left before turning to glare at Henry. He smacked the soup off the ledge with his arm, pointed at Henry, and clenched his fist.

"Aaaaaliiice!" Henry whined loudly. "Tom is—"

 _BANG!_ Tom punched a board, nearly cracking it in half.

"—doing absolutely nothing rude to me at all."

 **The Holding Cell: Part Four**

"…I know you're watching me. It's just… a little creepy."

"Aw man…" Henry didn't lower his phone, but continued recording. "I just wanted my fans to know what's the haps. Besides, you're the one who writes on the walls."

"You have no fans. Anyway, we all write on the walls. For some poor souls, it's the only way to be heard. But you don't want to touch the ink for too long. It can claim you and pull you back. That's how I met Tom. I was messing with things I shouldn't have been and he… he was there."

"Fascinating lore, Angel. Hey, why do you call him Tom? Isn't he a Boris?"

"He just seems to respond to it."

"Well, I don't think he's very fond of me. He's a meany-pants."

Alice snickered, then turned to Henry. "Let me show you something." She pulled something from behind a table in the main room and walked to Henry's ledge in the boards. "Awhile back, I was mapping one of the upper levels when I noticed something reflecting off a piece of glass."

She lifted a panel of glass with lights along the inner edges with a small stick for holding onto it and set it on the ledge. "I held up this glass, looked through, and on the wall behind me was a hidden message! Right there, in plain sight!"

 _Is this a new game mechanic?_ Henry wondered.

"So, I kept looking, and found more and more messages everywhere in the studio! But you can't see them with your eyes," she tapped the side of her face, "only through this. Take a look."

Henry picked up the handle with his left hand and held it at eye level. Sure enough… "'She will leave you for dead,'" he read aloud.

Alice blinked. "What?" She took the glass back and looked through it at the wall Henry had been looking at. "Huh… that wasn't there before. I wonder who 'she' is."

"Gee, I wonder."

Alice narrowed her eyes at him before handing the glass to him again. "I don't know who's leaving them, but I think they know how to get out of here."

Henry looked at Alice through the glass, admiring the halo over her head. "Where does it all lead to?"

"Nowhere."

"…Oh."

"I followed them for a long time… just lead me in circles." She looked down at a spot on the floor. "I don't think I'm meant to leave this place, Henry. But, maybe… _you_ are."

Henry lowered the glass, but held up his phone a bit higher. "Alice… please let me out of here. Pleeease? With a cherry on top?"

"Tom thinks you're dangerous."

"And what do you think? Come on, woman up a little."

"I… I think… you're the hope I've been waiting for." She pulled away from the ledge and turned to her wall of ink. "Go to sleep. Maybe tomorrow will be better."

Henry opened his mouth, then closed it. He glanced at the mysterious glass, then slowly put it under his pillow and paused the video for a nap.

 **The Holding Cell: Part Five**

Henry awoke to the sound of metal twisting against metal. He slowly got up, unpaused the live video feed, and peered through the boards. Alice seemed to be twisting the bolts holding Tom's arm together while chiding him. "That was really stupid, Tom," she was saying. "You shouldn't have gone out there. Now that he's seen you it's only a _matter_ of _time…_ before he finds us here."

Tom turned his head away from her, seemingly gazing at her wall writings. Henry caught Alice's eye and he finger gunned her with his free hand. Tom glanced up and Alice quickly returned to adjusting the arm, though not before Henry made a move. "You can fix _me_ anytime, Angel C- _ake!"_ His voice cracked from old age.

Alice immediately wrapped an arm around Tom's neck. "I have a boyfriend," she said defensively. For a brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, Tom's eyes turned into hearts. Henry gained five subscribers for wholesome content.

Henry shrugged. "Worth a shot." He returned to his cot.

 **The Holding Cell: The Finale**

There was a loud thump, and Henry jolted from his, like, fifth nap or something. The room was shaking.

"We can't just leave him!" Alice was saying. "Not with the ink demon right outside the door!

Henry unpaused his lived stream and peeked through the boards. "What's going on?"

"He's coming; we have to move on!" Alice said. The room rumbled and the three of them looked around, as one is wont to do during such a situation. Alice grabbed at the board ledge and pulled. "Tom!" she cried, "we have to let him out!" She continued to pull until Tom gently put his robot hand on her shoulder and shook his head. Alice slowly let go of the board. "…I'm sorry," she whispered. The two ink people ran out the door.

"I TOLD YOU IT WOULD BE YOU!" Henry shouted after her.

"NO YOU DIDN'T!" Alice yelled back.

"I IMPLIED IT!" And then they were gone. Henry flipped his video screen to face him. "Hello, everybody, my name is Henry and welcome back—finally—to my let's play live vlog of Joey Drew Studios. I've been filming on and off for at least a day, but we should finally be back on track for the game. I just got left behind, and the Ink Demon is coming, so I probably should do something about that. I mean, not that that's a real problem for me, since he's a coward who won't face his dad, but I'm tired of being in a box. I need to pee!"

He looked around the cell and scratched his chin… then snapped his fingers. "I'll pee in Alice's ink bucket! It's not like she needs it. There's always fresh ink to be found all over this place, anyway. Now, how to get out of here… oh, I know!"

Henry reached under his pillow and looked around the room through his phone through the mysterious device. There was a lot. "Oh, cool, my bed is a coffin. That's nice." He gazed at the scribbles all over the walls and found a message near a rack of cooking tools reading "take the spoon". He tugged at the spoon and the wall moved to the side, revealing… _revealing…!_

"Oh, a toilet. How… lovely. Why was this hidden? Like, what purpose would that serve?" The message above the toilet read: "Look inside, you'll need this".

"No way I'm touching that thing—oh, wait, not inside the _bowl_ , inside the… other part thing." Henry pushed the top cover on the back of the toilet to the side with the edge of the device, revealing a pipe. "Will this thing break a board of solid wood? Leave your guess in the comments below!" He smacked the board lightly and the whole thing shattered like glass. "…Why am I not surprised?"

 **Beyond the Safe Room**

"Ah… refreshing," Henry said as he wiped his hands on his pants. "Nothing like a good pee to get you ready for a new game day! Now, let's take a look…" Seeing nothing through the glass, Henry stepped into the messy hall… just as an ink creature popped up from a puddle. "Hecker!" Henry smacked the thing with his pipe and it melted away. This repeated for a few minutes: Henry would look through the glass, see nothing, and nearly step on an ink creature before it melted away.

 **Launch the Barge**

"So when I have the thing up, I can't move," Henry noted as he entered the next room. "I suppose every mechanic needs its drawbacks; otherwise, the game is too easy. Anyway, why is there a boat in here?"

The room was fairly large; at least, compared to the rest of the rooms he had been in for this chapter. There was a boat sitting on top of a wooden dock, which reached into an inky river. Henry saw a glowing switch and smacked it with the butt of the glass handle. It flicked on, and the boat lowered partially in the river. "Okay, now how do I get _in_ the boat?"

He hopped uselessly near the front of the boat, to no avail. He smacked the boat with his pipe, also to no avail. Finally, after a few minutes of struggling, he leaned against the lever in frustration. The lever moved back to its original position, and the rest of the boat landed in the ink river.

…

"Of course. Why not? Next, I'll pull the lever again and ice cream will come out."

 **Down the River**

After figuring out how to moved the boat forward, Henry was sailing so… very… slowly… down the ink river. There was a dark tunnel by the dock that the boat was headed towards. The boat itself seemed to be locked on a certain path, or, at least, Henry couldn't figure out how to turn the boat left or right.

The tunnel was just beginning to get a bit brighter when the rudder stopped. Henry looked at it behind him. "Dang, the ink down here sure is thick. Or thicc, whoever says that about inanimate liquid. Gotta unclog it with a pipe, because _that_ makes sense."

Just as he turned to the rudder, there was a loud splashing sound. Henry turned back around in time to see a giant gloved hand reach up from the river, making grabbing motions and stirring up the ink.

Shoot _shootSHOOT!_

Henry smacked away the ink blobs clogging the works of his boat and pushed the lever up again. Again, this repeated for a few minutes: Henry would move forward, stop to unclog the rudder, and internally or externally freak out over the large ink hand (That's so cool! Hashtag: Shake Hands with Bros!).

 **The Old Song Returns**

"Well. That could have been a little shorter. The novelty of a giant hand was cool, but it wore off pretty quickly. I will have so much advice for Joey in terms of game design, if I ever find him." Henry stepped off the boat and onto the dock of the new location. He, obviously, snapped a selfie of him and the fishing ink guy near the side of the room (hashtag: Bro Fish), then panned the camera and glass around the room.

The room was like the setting of a small movie setting, with little houses that didn't seem to lead anywhere and an almost old western feel to the place. In the center of the back of the room was a doorway blocked with boards. Henry held his glass to the door and read aloud: "Once people, now fallen into despair. Huh. I wonder what that means."

He walked towards the doorway… and screamed like a man when the boards broke apart and the music started.

"BETRAYED! ABANDONED!" Sammy Lawrence roared as he burst through the boards, wielding an axe. "I trusted you! I gave you _everything!_ And you left me to rot! Why? WHY?!"

"Jeezing heckers!" Henry yelped as Sammy swung at the gamer's head. "I'm just going to… leave?" Henry peeked at where Sammy had entered and found a dead end, no mysterious scribbles or anything. He turned to Sammy. "Did you just stand in this room the whole time, waiting for me? Why? WHY?!"

Sammy smacked him with the backside of this axe. Henry's vision darkened for a moment, but he quickly recovered and smacked Sammy with his pipe. It snapped in half, though not before taking Sammy's mask with it.

Sammy covered his face. "NO! Don't look at me! Stay away!" He hurried to the center of the room and stood stock still, facing away from Henry.

Henry reached out to him. "Uh, dude? Are you cool now, or—"

Sammy grabbed Henry with both hands by the neck and lifted him into the air. The game graphics wouldn't show you this, but Henry could sense what the game designers were aiming for. Sammy was meant to have three gaping holes in his face, two for his eyes and one for his mouth. Unfortunately, this did not show itself in the game very well. Henry's concern for this fact was quickly replaced by the next thing Sammy said.

"You lied to me! You said I'd be free!"

"I didn't say squat, dude! Take a chill pill!"

Sammy threw Henry on the ground and held him in place with his foot while he took a better hold of his axe. "Well, I'm going to free you now! Free your head right off your shoulders!"

Henry's vision was dark, but he could see a figure slowly stepping towards Sammy. "Sheep, sheep, sheep, it's time… for sleep-!"

There was a wet smacking sound, and Sammy fell over with a grunt. Henry's vision cleared, and he saw Sammy lying next to him with an axe in his head. The axe was removed, and Henry looked up to see—

"Tom!"

Tom stood above Henry, holding the axe. He smacked it against his metal hand once… then flipped it around, holding the handle to Henry. Henry grabbed it, and Tom pulled him to his feet, bringing a second axe out of nowhere and holding it after giving Henry his old one.

Alice walked over to them, holding the sword she'd had when they first met. "That was close," she said. "You're lucky we were—"

"AY!" Tom and Alice jumped. Henry held his fist to the wolf man. "Pound it, Thomas, _pound it!"_

…

SMACK!

"Let's go get some TATER TOTS!"

"…Anyway," Alice said as Henry shook out the hand Tom had smacked away with his metal arm. "You're lucky we were in the neighborhood." The room began to shake, and, once again, everyone looked around the room wildly.

"Was that the ink demon?" he asked.

"I don't think so," Alice replied. "The searchers and lost ones built this place. Sammy must have been keeping them at bay. Now that he's gone…" The room shook again, "looks like we're in for a fight. Get ready!" The room shook one last time, making puddles leak onto the floor around them. "Watch out, here they come!" Sure enough, searchers popped out of the puddles and began to advance.

"Wait!" Henry cried.

"What's the matter? We can't really delay this!"

Henry held up his axe, phone, and glass. "I can't hold all of these things at once!"

Tom face palmed and Alice groaned. She took a piece of rope from around her waist and threw it at Henry.

"Yay, that's happy!" Henry cheered as he tied his phone to the glass so the viewers could see what he could. "Now, let's do this!"

 **After the War**

"I think that's all of them," Alice said at last.

"That only took, like, eight years," Henry grumbled.

"Oh, hush. Anyway, you never know where they're gonna crawl out next. Probably best if we stay together from now on. Henry, think you can lead the way?"

"What?" said Henry. "You two know this place better!"

"Not this area. We don't need to come this way that often."

"Oh my gosh, _fine_. Just don't blame me if we go the wrong way. Wait…"

"What is it?"

Henry held up the glass with his phone on it. "I just want to make sure…" He aimed the glass at Tom. There was a bone in his mouth. "My man!" Henry reached up to Tom's face. "I'm gonna boop your snoot, okay?"

Tom smacked Henry's hand away with his robo arm.

"Ha ha ha. I feel hurt." Henry shook out his injured hand. "Anyway, follow me, lads!" Henry opened a side gate and led the two others towards a hall with a few boards as a floor. "Okay, watch your step, and-!"

A board snapped under Henry's weight and fell into the dark abyss below.

…

Alice held her arms in front of her. "Excuse me what the frick."

 **"It's in the Vault"**

Is the first message Henry saw once his vision cleared. The first sound he heard was the opening bars for that Alice Angel song… Lonely Angel, or I'll Be Your Angel, whichever it was. Henry pulled himself to his feet and checked to see his phone didn't crack. Once he was satisfied with the condition of his phone, he walked towards the larger room the hall ended in, not particularly concerned with where the axe had gone.

The room was fairly large, but not well lit. There was a Little Miracles station in one corner, a mini ink machine in another corner, a hall leading to more halls, and a door near the back. When Henry went through this door, he saw a wall of pipes, three of which were replaced with golden light images. "Isn't that interesting," Henry muttered. "Yet another fetch quest. Let me guess, the mini ink machine makes other pipes, and I have to find ink blobs to make them?" He returned to the machine and checked the panel on the side. "Joy."

 **Joey Drew's Office and the Pen**

"Not these guys again," Henry groaned as he watched a Butcher Gang member walk by. "I'll have to keep out of sight… is what I would say, if these guys posed a threat. I'm gonna take it slow, my dudes, so take a potty break if you need to."

Henry began his trek through the maze of halls, walking by Butcher Gang members casually and striding, eventually, into Joey Drew's office. The desk was large, and there were diplomas placed almost randomly on the walls. There was a tape recorder on the desk. Henry turned up his phone's sensitivity (which was probably broken at this point, but whatevs) and held it to the recorder's speaker.

"I know how much this part means to you, Susie," Joey's voice said. "Alice means a lot to me, too."

"IT'S JOEY DREW!" Henry yelled unnecessarily.

"All my characters do! In fact, I'll let you in on a little secret: I, too, believe my characters are more than just drawings. They're alive. They're part of us. And I want people to know them as well as I do. I want people to be able to shake their hand, spend an afternoon with them. Love them. Susie, I'll be straight with you. I'm putting together a small project… a little ceremony. If it works, a lot of dreams will come true. And I want you to be a part of it. I want you to bring Alice to life once again. Whaddaya say?"

*Click*

"…Huh." Henry glanced around the room. "Joey Drew, what did you do?"

He was about to leave when he bumped into the desk, knocking something onto the floor. It was a pen.

Grunting heavily (he _was_ an old man, after all), he leaned down and picked it up. It was a very fancy fountain pen, and when Henry drew a line on the desk to see if it worked, no ink came out. Making a connection, he aimed his phone and glass combo at where he had made a mark. Sure enough, there was a gold line on the desk.

"Does this mean Joey was the one writing these messages?" He glanced around before sticking the pen in his back pocket. "I'll just… take this…"

 **After the Puzzle: In the Vault**

The vault door was torn off the wall, and Henry walked in with ease. There wasn't much in the vault, aside from a few boxes. One was lit by a light, almost like a "look here for the next step of your let's play" sign. He opened the box, revealing… some blank reals.

"Looks like whatever was here was taken a long time ago."

Henry jumped and turned to see the wolf and the angel. "Don't. Scare me. Like that!" he wheezed. "How did you get down here?"

"It pays to carry a rope. You should try it."

Henry stuck his tongue out at Alice, but quickly sobered up. "Look," he said," I know where we need to go… but it's not going to be pleasant. The ink demon has something that we need. I'm going after him."

"You want to go to his lair? Are you crazy? That's death!"

"That's where the trail seems to lead."

Alice sighed. "Well, it's probably close by, probably through that door." She pointed at a sealed door on the side of the vault. "But it won't be easy to open…" She put a hand to her chin and pondered. "I'll need three gears, a crowbar… hmm, some kind of counter balance—"

Tom walked to the door and punched it in half.

"…That works too. I guess."

"Hacker skillz, my man!" Henry put a fist to Tom's arm and bumped his hand. Tom gave Henry a look before walking through the door. Alice and Henry looked at each other before following.

 **The Old Desk**

"Hey, here's my old desk." Henry pointed at the desk in the corner of the hall. "How did it get here? I thought it was on the first floor."

"Things are weird here, Henry," Alice replied. "Let's keep moving—wait."

"What is it—"

"Quiet!" Alice pointed down the hall to another hall lined with glass. "Don't make any noise…"

Henry peered through the windowed hall. The ink demon was shambling down the way.

Henry threw himself against the glass and screamed "HI BIRHTDAY BOY!"

Bendy jumped at the sudden noise and fell over before he crawled unnaturally quickly down the hall on all fours like a spider.

"…You. Are. An idiot." Alice said.

Henry shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

Alice sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Let's just get this over with."

 **The Ink Machine**

"Wow," Alice breathed. "I've never seen this before…"

Henry whistled. "It's something, ain't it?" The ink machine seemed bigger than it had when Henry first saw it at the beginning of his live stream. Gaskets blew out steam, gears turned, and a huge inky river separated the group from the colossal thing. Henry gained a viewer.

Alice glanced at the river. "I don't see any way across… nothing to build a raft with."

"We'll have to wade across," Henry stated.

"We can't," Alice replied. "We're not like you, Henry. If we go in there… well…" she turned to face him. "a drop of water in the ocean is rarely seen again."

Henry groaned. "Then I guess it's all up to me. And I don't even know if this let's play is worth the extra subscribers anymore. I don't really know why this is all happening to me."

"You're here for a reason, Henry. There's always a reason." She raised an eyebrow at him. "Even if it's not a very good reason."

"Yeah, yeah, laugh at the YouTuber, why don't you?"

"It's time, Henry. Set us free."

Henry looked at the glass with his phone attached in his hand, then at the river. "The least you could do is give me a weapon." He looked at Tom, who held his axe close and shook his head "no". He turned to Alice. "Give me your cool sword."

Alice held her machete close as well. "You can't have my cool sword."

"But I want the cool sword."

"It's my cool sword."

"Please?"

Tom shoved Henry into the river.

"Meanie-pants!" Henry shook his fist angrily at them before wading across the river, making sure not to get his phone and glass messy with ink.

 **Enter the Machine**

The Ink Machine, for some reason, had a long hallway and door entrance that Henry was now walking along in quietly. There were thin windows on each side of the hall every few feet leading to closet sized rooms, maybe eight feet tall, with ink pouring in each room from above.

There was a door at the end of the hall with a lever next to it, which Henry pulled, slowly revealing a room with a chair in the center, piled on top of a mess of ink and reels. There was a tape recorder next to the throne. Henry clicked the play button.

"It's simply awe-inspiring," Joey's voice began, "what one can accomplish with their own hands."

Henry panned around the room as Joey spoke, gazing at the video screens playing old episodes of Bendy and his pals. It was, indeed, awe-inspiring.

"A lump of clay can turn to meaning… if you strangle it with enough enthusiasm. Look what we've built! We created life itself, Henry! Not just on the silver screens, but in the hearts of those we entertained with our fancy moving pictures. But… when the tickets stopped selling… when the next big thing came along… only the monsters remained… shadows of the past. But you can save them, Henry! You can peel it all away! You see, there's only one thing Bendy has never known."

Henry returned his gaze to the chair. There was a reel on it. He picked it up.

"He was there for his beginning. But he's never seen…"

Henry flipped the reel over. "… **the end,** " they said together. The tape clicked off. Music began to play. Henry looked up.

Bendy was standing behind the chair, watching the cartoonist-turned-gamer. He held up an ungloved hand, and the two of them watched his hand grow five times its original size. His other hand did the same. Bendy knelt behind the chair, where Henry couldn't see him… until two long horns rose from behind the throne. A large beast crawled over the throne, a many fanged grimace where a cartoonish smile had been before.

Henry raised his phone. "…Death selfie?"

Bendy roared and punched Henry through a wall.

"Sick… nasty… dog…" Henry wheezed as he got to his feet. The hallways he was now in rumbled as Bendy ran through them, slipping into the ends of halls and appearing in a different one. Henry lifted his phone glass combo to his eyes and saw arrows pointing in certain directions. He followed them, making sure not to run into his beasty boy as he pulled the levers at the end of each arrow. After four levers, a door opened, leading to a larger room with four pillars of glass and more cartoons on the walls. Henry turned a valve on the wall and the pillars began to flow with ink. Bendy entered the room and roared.

Henry ducked behind a pillar and Bendy smashed it, sending the ink flooding along the floor. Henry repeated this with the rest of the pillars. After the fourth pillar was smashed, the room blacked out. Henry stood still and listened. The music was still playing, he just couldn't see anything except the light from his phone. He leaned close to it. "I think they blacked out the room so they could get rid of the Bendy model without the framerate dropping," he whispered loudly.

The lights slowly faded back in. The beasty boy was gone. Henry exited the room and found himself back where he had started: the throne room. There was a tape player by the throne, and Henry quickly put the reel in and pressed play. The reel began to turn. Henry turned around.

The Beast Bendy (that was a good name for him, Henry decided) was right behind him, reaching out a giant clawed towards him… when the silver screens on the walls began to glow brighter. Bendy backed up and looked at the screens in confusion. The screens suddenly changed to a black "the end" screen, and Bendy flinched, reaching back to Henry with another roar. The room flashed with a bright light, and Bendy roared one final time. Henry whited out.

 **"The End"**

The white slowly faded to… color? Henry blinked and looked around. He was in a multi colored, familiar looking room. A living room, to be precise, with a green carpet and a few chairs and lamps scattered around. A familiar song was playing from the room in next to the one he was in.

Henry realized his phone was no longer attached to the mysterious glass and gasped. "My phone! Where is my phone?! I—"

"Henry? So soon?" A voice called from the room where the radio was playing. It was also very familiar… but not in a good way. Henry hid the glass behind his back and slowly entered the next room, which turned out to be a kitchen. "I didn't expect you for another hour yet. Now you're just trying to impress me." It was Mr. Joey Drew, standing by the sink in a bathrobe next to a wheelchair. He wasn't looking at Henry.

"Um," Henry began, "my phone—"

"I know, I know," Joey interrupted. "You have questions. You always do!"

"Yes, actually. About my phone—"

"The only important question is this: who are we, Henry?"

"Well, I'm me. And you're going to give me my phone, or I'll—"

"I thought I knew who I was… but the success starved me. Nothing left but lines on a page. In the end, we followed two different roads of our own making. You, a lovely family…"

"Yeah, my Mom is pretty cool to let me stay at her house—"

"And me… a crooked empire. And my road burned. I let our creations become my life. The truth is…" Joey turned slowly, leaning heavily against the sink and counters. "You were always so good at pushing, old friend. Pushing me to do the right thing." He held up Henry's cell phone. "You should have pushed a little harder. Come visit the old workshop. There's something I need to show you—"

"MY PHONE!" Henry screamed, making Joey jump and nearly fall to the floor. "My Mommy gave me that phone! If you don't give it back right now-!"

"Calm down, Henry—"

"NO! And speaking of my phone, I have a lot of problems with the studio you made me play through!"

"…What?"

"First of all," Henry began, "there are _way_ too many fetch quests! Do you have any idea how long it took me to do that section with Susie?! It only seemed so short because The Author cut out a lot of it!"

"I am not a part of this conversation," The Author said quickly from behind her laptop.

"Just—just visit the studio, Henry. There's something I—"

"I'm not done!" Henry yelled. "The color scheme of the studio is so monochrome I'm probably color-blind right now!"

"Henry's opinions do not reflect those of the author—" The Author began.

"SHUT UP!" Henry yelled.

"YOU SHUT UP, HENRY STEIN!" Joey yelled back. "You are going back in that studio through that door—" Joey pointed at the front door. "—Or so help me, I'll break this phone!"

"You. Wouldn't. DARE."

Joey raised the phone above his head. "Try me! You can have it back once I exact my nonspecific revenge on you!"

"Hecker!" Henry yelled.

Joey waved his hand and Henry began to slide across the floor towards the opening door, which did indeed lead to the studio. "Into the studio with you!"

"Wait, one more thing."

"Five seconds. What is it?"

"…Hecker."

Henry flew through the door, which slammed shut behind him.

"Okay Joey, I'm here. Let's see if we can find what you wanted me to see." Henry covered his mouth in surprise. "Wait, didn't I… didn't I say that already? Wait…" Henry pulled out the glass from behind his back and looked through it. There were golden tally marks along the walls by the door. Hang on…

"Hang on…" Henry reached into his back pocket and pulled out the mysterious pen. He slowly drew a mark near where the tally marks ended. "But my phone… where's my phone?!" Henry pulled at the door handle frantically, to no avail. "Does… does this mean I have to do this whole thing again… _without_ my phone?" He sank to his knees." _"NOOOOOOO!"_

* * *

 ** _The Actual End_**

Now, I'm sure this ending doesn't satisfy a lot of you… but, there is a solution! You can simply write another part! As long as you give me credit for this AU idea, you can do whatever you like with this concept! I'd love to see what you come up with! Will Henry escape the studio? What about the scythe thing and the secret black and white mode? It's all up to you! Go wild and make sure you have fun!

Now, the second most important part of posting this today… I'm posting a new poll! I have some ideas for what I want to write at some point this summer, but I'm not sure where to start. So, a few minutes after I post this story, I'll post a new poll (which you can only access on a computer, from my experience) listing some ideas I have for what to work on next. Obviously, you pick the one you like the most. Of course, if you have a different idea, you can post a review on your favorite story telling me what you'd like.

Now, have a lovely summer break, and if you have exams, good luck! Until then!


End file.
